Debian 10 Buster LIVE won’t boot

[Redviking75]

It’s due to the outdated firmware on stable and I’m getting a ath10k_pci 0000:04:00.0 firmware ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-6.bin failing to load/not found error. I was able to get it to load on Virtualbox no problem but cannot get it to load on my actual pc. I did a ton of research before posting and actually found the firmware file containing the updated firmware but as the usb live boot stick file system is read only I cannot add it to the firmware folder on the stick. I figured out that it is included in “sid” but I read stable is better to have and more secure. Is there a work around for this?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

I very much doubt that a lack of firmware for a wireless card is stopping the system from booting. It is far more likely that your graphics card isn't working properly so that message just happens to be the last thing you see. What is your graphics hardware? Have you tried one of the unofficial ISO images that already include non-free firmware? The official installation guide includes a link to those images, see if you can find it (or just ask the interweb).

What happens if you add 2 (or 3, or 4) as a kernel command line parameter from the bootloader? That should force the system to boot to a console and stop the graphical desktop from starting.

[arochester]

https://www.reddit.com/r/debian/comment ... wont_boot/

[sgosnell]

If the hardware is very new, it may require a newer kernel as well as firmware, and that is available in the Buster backports. Can you boot to a recovery console? If so, you can put the newer kernel and firmware (not just the one you mentioned) on a USB drive and install them with dpkg, then reboot.

[metreo]

Are you using a non-free distribution?