Yes, @Lenovo, I'm talking to you! I'm sleeping in my tent outside your office with my Torches lit and my Pitchforks ready (its a bad joke).
The problem: distros like debian don't include proprietary network drives as part of the operating system installation, causing it to remain offline after installation
- Find a computer with an operating system similar to the one you are trying to install (debian in my case) that has good internet connection.
- Run the commands suggested below in the Package download section.
- Put the resulting
.deb
files in a usb drive. - Install the
.deb
files using the command mentioned in the Installation section.
(Create a folder and cd
to it before running this commands. In some cases, you will have a lot of dependencies.
apt install apt-rdepends
apt-get download $(apt-rdepends MYPACKAGE|grep -v "^ " |grep -v "^libc-dev$")
Replace MYPACKAGE
with the package you wish to install offline
PACKAGES="MYPACKAGE"
apt-get download $(apt-cache depends --recurse --no-recommends --no-suggests \
--no-conflicts --no-breaks --no-replaces --no-enhances \
--no-pre-depends ${PACKAGES} | grep "^\w")
Finding out what network cards your laptop has and what package has the correct drivers for it is outside the scope of this gist (for now).
Before downloading the packages themselves, please include the correct repo.
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
Add the following line to the file:
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye contrib non-free
https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/broadcom-sta-dkms
Some laptops have broadcom interfaces and this package includes the required drivers.
Sometimes, when you try to install broadcom-sta-dkms on a target machine, you will encounter issues related to broadcom-sta-dkms not matching installed linux-headers. Just use the computer with the internet to download the correct linux-headers package and install them on the offline computer.
https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/firmware-iwlwifi
Some laptops have intel interfaces and this package includes the required drivers.
On the target, offline computer, simply go to the folder containing all the .deb
files, and run:
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
Should work well on the first try. Look for errors though, and try to run this command multiple times before looking up the error.