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<!-- retain these comments for translator revision tracking -->
<!-- $Id$ -->
<sect1 id="loading-firmware" arch="not-s390">
<title>Loading Missing Firmware</title>
<para>
As described in <xref linkend="hardware-firmware"/>, some devices require
firmware to be loaded. In most cases the device will not work at all
if the firmware is not available; sometimes basic functionality is not
impaired if it is missing and the firmware is only needed to enable
additional features.
</para><para>
If a device driver requests firmware that is not available, &d-i; will
display a dialog offering to load the missing firmware. If this option
is selected, &d-i; will scan available devices for either loose firmware
files or packages containing firmware. If found, the firmware will be
copied to the correct location (<filename>/lib/firmware</filename>) and
the driver module will be reloaded.
</para>
<note><para>
Which devices are scanned and which file systems are supported depends on
the architecture, the installation method and the stage of the installation.
Especially during the early stages of the installation, loading the firmware
is most likely to succeed from a FAT-formatted USB stick.
<phrase arch="x86">On i386 and amd64 firmware can also be loaded from an
MMC or SD card.</phrase>
</para></note>
<para>
Note that it is possible to skip loading the firmware if you know the
device will also function without it, or if the device is not needed during
the installation.
</para><para>
&d-i; only prompts for firmware needed by kernel modules loaded during
the installation. Not all drivers are included in &d-i;, in particular
radeon is not, so this implies that the capabilities of some devices may
be no different at the end of the installation from what they were at
the beginning. Consequently, some of your hardware may not be being used
to its full potential. If you suspect this is the case, or are just
curious, it is not a bad idea to check the output of the
<command>dmesg</command> command on the newly booted system and search
for <quote>firmware</quote>.
</para>
<sect2><title>Preparing a medium</title>
<para>
Official installation images do not include non-free firmware. The most common
method to load such firmware is from some removable medium such as a USB
stick. Alternatively, unofficial installation images containing non-free firmware
can be found at <ulink url="&url-firmware-cds;"/>.
To prepare a USB stick (or other medium like a hard drive partition),
the firmware files or packages must be placed in either the root directory
or a directory named <filename>/firmware</filename> of the file system on
the medium. The recommended file system to use is FAT as that is most
certain to be supported during the early stages of the installation.
</para><para>
Tarballs and zip files containing current packages for the most common firmware are
available from:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
<ulink url="&url-firmware-tarballs;"/>
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
Just download the tarball or zip file for the correct release and unpack it to
the file system on the medium.
</para><para>
If the firmware you need is not included in the tarball, you can also
download specific firmware packages from the (non-free section of the)
archive. The following overview should list most available firmware
packages but is not guaranteed to be complete and may also contain
non-firmware packages:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>
<ulink url="&url-firmware-packages;"/>
</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para><para>
It is also possible to copy individual firmware files to the medium. Loose
firmware could be obtained for example from an already installed system or
from a hardware vendor.
</para>
</sect2>
<sect2><title>Firmware and the Installed System</title>
<para>
Any firmware loaded during the installation will be copied automatically
to the installed system. In most cases this will ensure that the device
that requires the firmware will also work correctly after the system is
rebooted into the installed system. However, if the installed system runs
a different kernel version from the installer there is a slight chance that
the firmware cannot be loaded due to version skew.
</para><para>
If the firmware was loaded from a firmware package, &d-i; will also install
this package for the installed system and will automatically add the non-free
section of the package archive in APT's <filename>sources.list</filename>.
This has the advantage that the firmware should be updated automatically if
a new version becomes available.
</para><para>
If loading the firmware was skipped during the installation, the relevant
device will probably not work with the installed system until the firmware
(package) is installed manually.
</para>
<note><para>
If the firmware was loaded from loose firmware files, the firmware copied to
the installed system will <emphasis>not</emphasis> be automatically updated
unless the corresponding firmware package (if available) is installed after
the installation is completed.
</para></note>
</sect2>
<sect2 id="completing-installed-system"><title>Completing the Installed System</title>
<para>
Depending on how the installation was performed, it might be that the
need for some firmware was not detected during installation, that the
relevant firmware was not available, or that one chose not to install
some firmware at that time.
In some cases, a successful installation can still end up in a black
screen or a garbled display when rebooting into the installed
system. When that happens, the following workarounds can be tried:
</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem><para>Pass the <code>nomodeset</code> option on the kernel
command line. This might help boot into a <quote>fallback
graphics</quote> mode.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Use the
<keycombo><keycap>Ctrl</keycap><keycap>Alt</keycap><keycap>F2</keycap></keycombo>
key combination to switch to VT2, which might offer a functional
login prompt.</para></listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>
Once logged in into the installed system, it is possible to automate
the detection of missing firmware, and to perform the required steps to
enable them following this procedure:
</para><orderedlist>
<listitem><para>Install the <classname>isenkram-cli</classname>
package.</para></listitem>
<listitem><para>Run the
<command>isenkram-autoinstall-firmware</command> command as the
<quote>root</quote> user.</para></listitem>
</orderedlist><para>
Usually, rebooting is the simplest way to make sure all kernel modules
are properly initialized; that's particularly important when one has
booted the system with the <code>nomodeset</code> option as an
interim measure.
</para><note><para>
Installing firmware packages is very likely to require enabling the
non-free section of the package archive. As of &debian-gnu; 11.0,
running the <command>isenkram-autoinstall-firmware</command> command
will do that automatically by creating a dedicated file
(<filename>/etc/apt/sources.list.d/isenkram-autoinstall-firmware.list</filename>),
pointing at a generic mirror.
</para></note>
</sect2>
</sect1>
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