When PXE installing laptops with Debian, I often run into the +problem that the WiFi card require some firmware to work properly. +And it has been a pain to fix this using preseeding in Debian. +Normally something more is needed. But thanks to +my isenkram +package and its recent tasksel extension, it has now become easy +to do this using simple preseeding.
+ +The isenkram-cli package provide tasksel tasks which will install +firmware for the hardware found in the machine (actually, requested by +the kernel modules for the hardware). (It can also install user space +programs supporting the hardware detected, but that is not the focus +of this story.)
+ +To get this working in the default installation, two preeseding +values are needed. First, the isenkram-cli package must be installed +into the target chroot (aka the hard drive) before tasksel is executed +in the pkgsel step of the debian-installer system. This is done by +preseeding the base-installer/includes debconf value to include the +isenkram-cli package. The package name is next passed to debootstrap +for installation. With the isenkram-cli package in place, tasksel +will automatically use the isenkram tasks to detect hardware specific +packages for the machine being installed and install them, because +isenkram-cli contain tasksel tasks.
+ +Second, one need to enable the non-free APT repository, because +most firmware unfortunately is non-free. This is done by preseeding +the apt-mirror-setup step. This is unfortunate, but for a lot of +hardware it is the only option in Debian.
+ +The end result is two lines needed in your preseeding file to get +firmware installed automatically by the installer:
+ ++ ++base-installer base-installer/includes string isenkram-cli +apt-mirror-setup apt-setup/non-free boolean true +
The current version of isenkram-cli in testing/jessie will install +both firmware and user space packages when using this method. It also +do not work well, so use version 0.15 or later. Installing both +firmware and user space packages might give you a bit more than you +want, so I decided to split the tasksel task in two, one for firmware +and one for user space programs. The firmware task is enabled by +default, while the one for user space programs is not. This split is +implemented in the package currently in unstable.
+ +If you decide to give this a go, please let me know (via email) how +this recipe work for you. :)
+ +So, I bet you are wondering, how can this work. First and +foremost, it work because tasksel is modular, and driven by whatever +files it find in /usr/lib/tasksel/ and /usr/share/tasksel/. So the +isenkram-cli package place two files for tasksel to find. First there +is the task description file (/usr/share/tasksel/descs/isenkram.desc):
+ ++ ++Task: isenkram-packages +Section: hardware +Description: Hardware specific packages (autodetected by isenkram) + Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific packages are + proposed. +Test-new-install: show show +Relevance: 8 +Packages: for-current-hardware + +Task: isenkram-firmware +Section: hardware +Description: Hardware specific firmware packages (autodetected by isenkram) + Based on the detected hardware various hardware specific firmware + packages are proposed. +Test-new-install: mark show +Relevance: 8 +Packages: for-current-hardware-firmware +
The key parts are Test-new-install which indicate how the task +should be handled and the Packages line referencing to a script in +/usr/lib/tasksel/packages/. The scripts use other scripts to get a +list of packages to install. The for-current-hardware-firmware script +look like this to list relevant firmware for the machine: + +
+ ++#!/bin/sh +# +PATH=/usr/sbin:$PATH +export PATH +isenkram-autoinstall-firmware -l +
With those two pieces in place, the firmware is installed by +tasksel during the normal d-i run. :)
+ +If you want to test what tasksel will install when isenkram-cli is +installed, run DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical tasksel --test +--new-install to get the list of packages that tasksel would +install.
+ +Debian Edu will be +pilots in testing this feature, as isenkram is used there now to +install firmware, replacing the earlier scripts.
+ +