2.2. Thiết bị cần thiết phần vững

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.

With many graphics cards, basic functionality is available without additional firmware, but the use of advanced features requires an appropriate firmware file to be installed in the system. In some cases, a successful installation can still end up in a black screen or garbled display when rebooting into the installed system. If that happens, some workarounds can be tried to log in anyway (see Phần 6.4.3, “Completing the Installed System”).

On many older devices which require firmware to work, the firmware file was permanently placed in an EEPROM/Flash chip on the device itself by the manufacturer. Nowadays most new devices do not have the firmware embedded this way anymore, so the firmware file must be uploaded into the device by the host operating system every time the system boots.

Trong hậu hết các trường hợp, phần cững khác tự do tùy theo những tiêu chuẩn được Dự án Debian GNU/Linux dùng thì không thể được bao gồm trong bản phát hành chính hoặc trong hệ thống cài đặt. Nếu trình điều khiển thiết bị chính nó được bao gồm tong bản phát hành, và nếu Debian GNU/Linux có quyền hợp pháp để phát hành phần vững đó, nó thường sẵn sàng dưới dạng một gói riêng từ phần khác tự do (non-free) của kho gói.

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 USB stick. See Phần 6.4, “Nạp phần vững bị thiếu” for detailed information on how to load firmware files or packages during the installation.

If the debian-installer prompts for a firmware file and you do not have this firmware file available or do not want to install a non-free firmware file on your system, you can try to proceed without loading the firmware. There are several cases where a driver prompts for additional firmware because it may be needed under certain circumstances, but the device does work without it on most systems (this e.g. happens with certain network cards using the tg3 driver).