Installation Debian 7 on Intel NUC Dn2820FYKH

[Debian-HGE]

Hello,

I'm struggleing installing Debian 7.4.0 on a brand new Intel NUC DN2820FYKH.
I managed to start the Installation from a PEN Drive and I can select the Installation mode in the "Installer Boot menu", but as soon as it comes up with the first question to "select a language", the keyboard does not work anymore, the Num-lock LED Switches off and the Installation can't go on.

I tried several settings within the UEFI BIOS to boot in Legacy Mode and so on, but nothing helped until now.

Does anybody facing the same issue and found a solution to proceed with the Installation?

Thank you in advance, Horst

[Debian-HGE]

I successfully managed the installation with the current version of Debian jessie/testing.

BR, Horst

[cvarta]

I guess the issue with your computer locking-up with Debian 7 is closely related to thew NUC's new Intel Hardware. The Intel HD graphics is known to cause problems with the 3.2.x kernel Debian 7 ships with. The solution is to enable the backports repository and install a newer kernel such as the 3.13 (it needs to be at least 3.4, where a lot of bugs related to the Intel HD graphics were fixed). Testing (Jessie) ships with a recent enough kernel which doesn't suffer from the former mentioned issues.

Would be nice if you could add a [SOLVED] - tag to the title of the post

[boldstripe]

I have recently received my DN2820FYKH (version: H22962-101) and I successfully installed Debian Jessie.

To the stock unit, which cost less than $140, I added 4GB RAM and a Toshiba 1TB hybrid drive.

I could not do anything until I plugged in a different monitor, an LCD TV rated at 720P with an HDMI input –– before that, on my fancy NEC 2690WUXi, which is supposed to support everything, I got a blank screen on boot.
When I had a working monitor, I updated to BIOS FY.0032 (by pressing F7 on startup with the updated firmware file on a USB flash drive) before attempting the Debian installation.
After the firmware update, my NEC monitor worked fine.(Note: should also work fine on BIOS 0028 in case you do as I eventually did below).
I installed Wheezy first from a Netinstall CD (v7.3), accepting the Installer's defaults such as a single partition. I did not stay there for long because I only got limited screen resolutions like 1600x1200 (if I remember), so I updated to Jessie by editing my sources.list file.
Before the Wheezy-to-Jessie upgrade would go ahead in Synaptic, I had to first manually install python-glade2, using Synaptic.

I did not even discover the fancy Intel BIOS boot panel until I had a working Jessie computer, and I was not aware of making any choices to do with UEFI, I just let the standard installer script do its stuff. When I discovered the BIOS panel, I raised the video memory to 256 MB.

Now the DN2820FYKH works well under Debian Jessie (other than a mouse freeze after sleep with latest BIOS, see below). It certainly seems faster than my old Samsung Netbook running Jessie. It suits my purpose of a test bed for learning Debian that I can get some useful everyday work done on. Many users are interested in using this as a home media center, but that is not my principal interest.

For anyone thinking of buying one, this product has had an irregular history of availability in early 2014, and some retailers do not show it as available as of May: Intel have announced that they will be switching production from building with a 2820 Celeron processor to an improved 2830 version, while still apparently maintaining the original product code number for the complete package. You may want to research this on the Intel Communities Forum.

One nice surprise: despite the specs of the DN2820FYKH which state maximum display resolution of 1920x1080, and despite warnings by Intel staff that this could not be upgraded by a firmware update by them, I am successfully running my NEC monitor at its full 1920x1200 pixels, its native resolution. Can't explain why, it may not work for you, but perhaps I should thank the Firmware update?

One important caveat: at this time BIOS 0032 seems to cause a lockup in the USB keyboard/mouse on wake from sleep, requiring a restart. This can be fixed by reverting to BIOS 0028, which is possible to do with the file on a USB flash drive and entering Visual BIOS panel by pressing F2 on startup (without opening the computer). I have posted this issue on the Intel NUC Communities forum and Intel staff are looking into it. However, Intel do state that only Windows 8 is 'supported' on this computer. So far, I am running BIOS 0028 without serious issues, but the fan sound is now audible whereas I think it was quieter in BIOS 0032.

[Edit/Update on Nov 6, 2014: wake from sleep no longer seems to cause a lockup to the USB keyboard/mouse in Debian Jessie with bios updated to BIOS 0040. I am now using 0040.]

[boldstripe]

Wake from sleep is no longer locking USB mouse/keyboard in BIOS 0040 under Debian Jessie for me.