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Main » 2012 » February » 7 » Chapter 2 : System Requirements | 2. Devices Requiring Firmware
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Chapter 2 : System Requirements | 2. Devices Requiring Firmware
Devices Requiring Firmware
Besides the availability of a device driver, some hardware also requires
so-called firmware or microcode
to be loaded into the device before it can become operational. This is most
common for network interface cards (especially wireless NICs), but for example
some USB devices and even some hard disk controllers also require firmware.
In most cases firmware is non-free according to the criteria used by the
Debian GNU/Linux project and thus cannot be included in the main distribution
or in the installation system. If the device driver itself is included in
the distribution and if Debian GNU/Linux legally can distribute the firmware,
it will often be available as a separate package from the non-free section
of the archive.
However, this does not mean that such hardware cannot be used during an
installation. Starting with Debian GNU/Linux 5.0, debian-installer supports loading
firmware files or packages containing firmware from a removable medium,
such as a floppy disk or USB stick.
See the section called "Loading Missing Firmware” for detailed information on how to
load firmware files or packages during the installation.
