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I'm trying to install debian stable using unetbootin. The install process fails with "network autoconfiguration failed", probably due to the ethernet driver not working.

My Lenovo U350 has a Broadcom BCM57780 which does not seem to be supported out-of-the-box: there are various bug reports here, here and here, but I don't know if the fix has made it into debian (6) stable.

One discussion says that you have to use an ethernet driver from the firmware-linux-nonfree package. I'm not sure that this is correct because the BCM57780 is not in the list of drivers in firmware-linux-nonfree.

The specific question tree is:

  • Is BCM57780 supported in debian stable?
    • If so, what could be wrong? Should I install debian unstable instead?
    • If not, do I need to use firmware-linux-nonfree during installation and, if so, how do I do this?

Please note: I've used ubuntu and debian loads in the past but please post line-by-line guidance rather than some cryptic abbreviation of any instructions.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Updates:

  • Debian stable with non-free drivers did not work.
  • Debian unstable (free drivers only) did not work.
  • Tried loading firmware-iwlwifi_0.28_all.deb from another USB stick to get wireless working rather than BCM57780. The .deb file was found but the network configuration still failed!
  • That's it, I'm giving up. Unfortunately I'll use ubuntu even though the Unity user interface will be very unstable for the next couple of years :(
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Hmm annoying, according to bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=574888 it should have been fixed in squeeze... – PriceChild Apr 6 '11 at 8:36
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I don't know if the BCM57780 is supported in Debian Squeeze, but if it uses the tg3 driver then I can confirm it's not in the net installer (I had this same problem myself). I actually extracted the initrd, added the missing firmware, and re-compressed the initrd.

Have you tried the instructions on how to use 3rd party firmware?

Also, Raphael Hertzog sells an installation CD/DVD with pre-loaded firmware.

Edit: Sorry I just realized what unetbootin is and what you're trying to do (install debian onto a live usb stick). Try one of these unofficial CD images which already include the non-free firmware.

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Thanks for the help. Now I know why ubuntu is so popular! I'm downloading hammurabi.acc.umu.se/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/… now. I'll update this thread when I've tried it. – blokeley Apr 6 '11 at 14:55
Using the non-free drivers did not work either. I think that the bug fix simply didn't make it into Debian 6. This is turning into a complete waste of time. – blokeley Apr 6 '11 at 20:23
What driver does it need? If you already have a system booted on that computer type lspci -v to find which driver the system is using. Otherwise you can boot from a ubuntu CD. – dimmer Apr 6 '11 at 22:14
It grumbled about not having the wifi driver files iwlwifi-5000-1.ucode and iwlwifi-5000-2.ucode. Even when I had the files available in firmware-iwlwifi_0.28_all.deb on another USB stick (and debian stopped grumbling), the wifi didn't work. If I run lspci -v, what are the chances of a simple fix? – blokeley Apr 7 '11 at 10:34
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According to this blog, the drivers are broadcom and tg3, which must be loaded in that order. In order to change the module order on a live usb stick, you'd have to have to decompress and edit the initrd and/or the casper filesystem (but I'm not sure if it's one or both). So no, I don't think there is a quick fix here. If anyone's interested, these 2 pages show you how to do this: [linuxadministration.us/?p=93](initrd) [linux.com/archive/feature/137524](casper squashfs) – dimmer Apr 7 '11 at 20:38
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