[GTALUG] Debian install fails due to network failure

Sat Jan 8 16:16:48 EST 2022

| From: sciguy via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

This second message had a lot more useful information.  That
eliminates several hypotheses / blind alleys.

If I remember correctly, computers of that era supported UEFI but were
generally configured to use the alternative.  The alternative doesn't
have an official name.  MBR or "Legacy" or "BIOS" are sometimes used.

It's best to have one booting scheme on a computer.  If your current
Windows system is MBR, your Linux ought to be the same.

There are complexities.  Like: how do you support large disks with
MBR?  The Linux convention is to use GPT partitioning but fake an MBR
partition table to allow MBR booting.  I'm not going to discus that.

Is your Windows set up as UEFI-booting or as MBR-booting?

| > What is your NIC?
| 
| The NIC is also just a chipset on the motherboard. On Windows, my Device
| Manager says that I am using "Intel Ethernet Connection I217-V". Network
| discovery is enabled. I don't have wireless on this computer. A direct cat-5
| goes to the router, and DHCP is used.

Google is your friend.

Is this your problem?:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=191981

It looks as if the Windows driver, if Wake on LAN is enabled, puts the
device in a state that Linux cannot deal with.  Rebooting doesn't fix
it.  Turning off the computer doesn't fix it.  Unplugging the computer
long enough (30 seconds?) does work.

| > (2)
| > 
| > UEFI can almost always be convinced to do what you need.  If you are not
| > used to it, you are probably trying to get it to do something unnatural.
| > 
| > Note: UEFI and GRUB are not alternatives: you will be using both.
| > 
| > UEFI booting is a multi-stage process (true of all kinds of booting)
| > 
| > - UEFI starts
| > 
| > - UEFI has a setting for what to boot.  This will be the path to a .efi
| >   file within the ESP (EFI System Partition) of the hard drive.
| > 
| > - The ESP is a distinguished FAT partition.  It will have been created by
| >   installing Windows.  Linux needs to share it.
| 
| I think this is a bottleneck. I notice that it stalls when "writing to boot
| record" or something like that. I never saw EFI mentioned by Linux, so I
| wouldn't know how to "share" the EFI with Linux. I notice it is not doing it
| on its own; or in the case of Debian, it just goes halfway.
| 
| I have also just tried installing Slackware, and it happily installs, but
| stalls on the dialog for writing boot information. Pressing ENTER cleared that
| dialog and the install finished, but something was probably up, since it only
| booted partially, and only with a USB as a boot drive.

At least with Fedora, if you booted the installation medium with UEFI,
it will try to install a UEFI system.  Note: the Fedora installation
meddium can be boote using UEFI or MBR.  Make sure that your boot
options boot the flash memory stick the same way as you want the
installed system to boot.

| > - To boot most Linux distros, there will be a "shim" .efi program in the
| >   ESP.
| > 
| >   On a Fedora system, it is /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/shim.efi
| > 
| > - Once the UEFI has started shim.efi, the shim loads grub
| >   (/boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grubx64.efi)
| > 
| > At this point things are close to what you are used to.
| > 
| > What is odd under UEFI is selecting what .efi to boot.  Almost every
| > UEFI firmware has a setup page that lets you select what .efi to boot,
| > but the capabilities and methods vary wildly.  I cannot tell you what
| > to do from the setup page because I cannot see yours.
| 
| I guess I could repeat the Slackware boot procedure (since it offers an extra
| root console), and mount the EFI partition. Are these .efi files text files?

A live Ubuntu system (i.e. running from the installation medium)
offers lots ot oportunities for hacking.