Nonfree firmware wi-fi driver needed at installation.

[stf92]

Hi: I am installing Debian Stretch (netinst) on an Acer Aspire One Cloudbook. At certain point during the installation the installer says something like (in the detect internet connection step) "the driver needed is nonfree firmware. Insert removable media (USB stick or floppy disk) with this file: iwlwifi-3160-17.ucode". What I did is this: I deleted all the partitions of a USB 2.0 stick and created a 1GB type 0C (W95 FAT32 (LBA)) partition with cfdisk. Then I ran mkfs.vfat /dev/sda and copied the file to the stick.

Alright. However when the installer asked for the media, I inserted it but it did not recognized it. It insisted in the same message ("Please insert ..."). What am I to do?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Search for "unoffical non-free debian iso image".

EDIT: or buy a better wireless card

[arochester]

1) If you can connect by cable you can disregard the message.

2) You could alternatively have used the unofficial CD with firmware >>> https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unof ... -firmware/

3)

Then I ran mkfs.vfat /dev/sda and copied the file to the stick.

Where did you run this? Did you actually format the USB stick? (For me it is normally sdb.) Is the file really on the stick?

[stf92]

1) If you can connect by cable you can disregard the message.

2) You could alternatively have used the unofficial CD with firmware >>> https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unof ... -firmware/

3)

Then I ran mkfs.vfat /dev/sda and copied the file to the stick.

Where did you run this? Did you actually format the USB stick? (For me it is normally sdb.) Is the file really on the stick?

On an Arch Linux OS. Yes,I formatted it and the file is on the stick. But in the meanwhile I received the following replay from another forum: "Did it ever occured to you that a linux installer expects to see a linux file system? So I'll reformat with ext2.

EDIT: with ext2 it's exactly the same thing. The installer cannot find the file.
EDIT 2: I have the driver. So I think I could copy it to /lib/firmware and make a 'modprobe iwlwifi-3160-17.ucode'. Could it work? But then I need a procedure to make sure I have internet connectivity. Would the ping command be of any use?

[stf92]

I downloaded the non-free firmware iso image and all went well. Thanks a lot.