#778614 D-I: Unable to load firmware from NTFS formated usb stick

Package:
debian-installer
Source:
debian-installer
Description:
Debian Installer documentation
Submitter:
Andrey Tataranovich
Date:
2015-02-17 19:27:10 UTC
Severity:
normal
#778614#5
Date:
2015-02-17 13:55:47 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

A few days ago I tried to install Debian Jessie using "Debian GNU/Linux testing
"Jessie" - Official Snapshot amd64 NETINST Binary-1 20150209-06:32" disk.

Network card require non-free firmware to work (d-i unable to detect network
hardware without it) so I inserted NTFS formated usb stick with needed firmware
(/firmware). But seems NTFS is not supported so I was unable to proceed.

Why not to add support for NTFS for loading missing firmware? As I know kernel
already have support for reading NTFS volumes.
#778614#10
Date:
2015-02-17 14:10:30 UTC
From:
To:
Andrey Tataranovich, le Tue 17 Feb 2015 16:55:47 +0300, a écrit :

Just FTR (not implying anything, just giving the number), ntfs.ko weighs
326KiB on my 3.16 kernel.

Samuel
#778614#15
Date:
2015-02-17 14:13:30 UTC
From:
To:
Control: severity -1 wishlist

NTFS is special because it is not a user-space filesystem.

And Windows does not allow formatting removable drives as NTFS, so this
is not a normal filesystem to use on removable drives.  Reducing the
severity accordingly.

Ben.
#778614#22
Date:
2015-02-17 14:31:37 UTC
From:
To:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015 14:13:30 +0000 Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> wrote:
NTFS: http://gyazo.com/fd4cb1b46667dabdbdd3a2fcdb59d2c3

so I believe we need to support NTFS for loading missing firmware.
#778614#27
Date:
2015-02-17 16:46:35 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Andrey,

and thanks for your report.

Andrey Tataranovich <tataranovich@gmail.com> (2015-02-17):

https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch06s04.html.en contains,
under "6.4.1. Preparing a medium":

    "The recommended file system to use is FAT as that is most certain
     to be supported during the early stages of the installation."

Keeping this bug report at wishlist severity (as set by Ben) for later
consideration looks like the way to go.

Mraw,
KiBi.
#778614#32
Date:
2015-02-17 17:44:56 UTC
From:
To:
Of course it allows that.  In fact it won't allow you to use FAT32 for
anything bigger than 32GB, so lots of external drives are NTFS because
you have no other choice.
#778614#37
Date:
2015-02-17 19:03:29 UTC
From:
To:
On Tue, 17 Feb 2015 12:44:56 -0500 "Lennart Sorensen" <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

To install Debian I'm using Zalman ZM-VE200. This device allow to attach
ISO image as virtual cdrom. In addition device allow to export it's
internal hdd, so I have cdrom + usb storage with NTFS.

To be able to use virtual cdrom functionality I must use NTFS or exFAT,
but nothing of this is supported by D-I.
#778614#42
Date:
2015-02-17 19:24:38 UTC
From:
To:
Control: severity -1 normal

Sorry, I never noticed that this had changed.  I disagree with 'need',
but that does seem to make this higher severity than wishlist.

Ben.