The process is something like the following : 1. #Ac1200 wifi usb adapter install driverSo first the driver loads the firmware then its job is to interact with the device. However, it is not its only job : judging from the source code, the driver I got from github was calling X.org functions. One of the purposes of the driver is to load the firmware to the device so that it can be flashed there. That would not be possible if the firmware had been written to a ROM. #Ac1200 wifi usb adapter install softwareSo even-though the device's memory could have been holding proper firmware data (provided that it was on a persistent memory), Debian refused to operate the device unless a driver re-flashed the firmware.Īn advantage of having a firmware being flashed each time the device is used is that the device's manufacturer can provide software updates, not only to the driver (not my case here) but also to the firmware. However, when Debian saw the device it did not trust the content of the device's memory. The device had been used on a Windows computer before, which obviously loaded the firmware on the device. Apart from the ICs responsible for firmware-flashing, the memory was (or could have been) completely blank ? When I took my device out of the box for its first use, the only program it hosted (or might have hosted) was the firmware-flashing software (probably on a ROM-chip). When unplugged, the device could lose (nearly) all of its memory and it wouldn't be a problem since the firmware will be re-flashed anyway the next time it will be plugged. So over the life of the product, the firmware will be flashed hundreds if not thousands of times ? The firmware is flashed on the device either each time the device is plugged to the computer or at each startup (if the device was already plugged in when booting). Interesting information in that link… I never thought of the firmware-loading process, so I am a bit confounded right now. However, running an `apt-get update` leads to an error message because Debian is expecting the packages to be on a cdrom not on a To make things simpler, I downloaded the DVD-1 *.iso image instead which also contains "make") However, they can be installed from the USB pendrive (note that "make" is not provided with the CD-1 *.iso image but by the CD-4 *.iso image. Right after installation, make, dkms and other useful packages are not installed out-of-the-box. Eventually, Debian got installed and I could run it. Booting from the pendrive, I followed the installation procedure without connection to the internet, and when prompted to provide a firmware file (most certainly for the Wifi device) I skipped that step (perhaps that wasn't a smart move). I installed the DVD-1 of jessie (gnome) on a USB pendrive using Unetbootin. However, I did own a laptop connected to the internet so I could get some files from the internet using the laptop, copy it on a memory stick and transfer it onto the desktop computer. To make things more difficult I could not get access to the internet from that computer (e.g. I own a desktop computer that I wanted to connect to the internet using a wifi to usb "adapter". Here is the detailled procedure I followed in case somebody is facing the same problem and is looking for some advice. Would you share some answers to those questions ? Wifi adapter) needs to be managed by the linux kernel and not by a regular process ? #Ac1200 wifi usb adapter install codeBasically, answering the following question would wipe out my confusion : why does the code that manage a device external to the computer (e.g. What exactly is a linux module ? I've encountered the term several times before but the explanations I've encountered either seem too fuzzy or are beyond my reach. #Ac1200 wifi usb adapter install installWhy wasn't the *.fw file part of the driver that I downloaded and of the linux module that I installed ? Is there a good reason for this ? People that invoked "make" instead of using "dkms" do not seem to install the package "firmware-realtek" that provides the firmware "*.fw" file. Now I have a working internet connection !įiddling with the system is an excellent way to learn how it works (^.^) ! As a result, I was left with the following questions to meditate on : #Ac1200 wifi usb adapter install passwordCode: Select all nmcli device wlan0 wifi connect password
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