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I give up due to wireless

PostPosted: Nov 24th, '20, 19:48
by pccobbler
When I had broadband at home, I could install Mageia via Ethernet, which worked okay. But now I must use wireless.

I've tried numerous times to install Mageia via wireless. The installation always fails when I try to configure wireless. Every other distribution I've tried lists the available signals, but not Mageia. So I tried entering the name of the signal into SSID. There is no password for the wireless, as this is a library. Still failure.

Why doesn't Mageia allow connecting at the beginnng of the installation? (I'm talking about classic; the live ISOs probably allow that, but I don't like Plasma or GNOME) Second-best would be a listing of all available signals when wireless is configured.

Obviously the community believes that the current scheme is optimum. As for me, I will try another distribution.

Re: I give up due to wireless

PostPosted: Nov 24th, '20, 22:45
by martinw
The classic installer ISOs don't use non-free software and firmware when running the installer, which means most wireless devices won't work. This is a long-standing policy (not one I particularly agree with, but other people feel strongly about it). But why do you want to connect, wirelessly or otherwise? The whole point of the classic installer ISOs is to allow an off-line install. If you want to do an on-line install, the netinstall ISOs are there for that. Admittedly the netinstall ISOs have the limitation that they don't support WPA2 encryption - that isn't policy, it's just lack of someone with the necessary time and knowledge to make it work.

Re: I give up due to wireless

PostPosted: Nov 25th, '20, 03:02
by pccobbler
Thanks for the reply.

The installation fails, with Mageia refusing to proceed because it cannot configure wireless. I did not write down the error message, so I cannot quote it. If it's an offline installation, why is it concerned with wireless? Admittedly my laptop has Ralink wireless, which is as much of an unwanted orphan as Broadcom.

I understand your reference to wireless device drivers. The lack of support for hardware is why I do not use Debian or Fedora (also, there's that systemd thing).

Re: I give up due to wireless

PostPosted: Nov 25th, '20, 11:20
by martinw
It should only try to configure wireless if you try to add additional on-line media at the start of installation or agree to enable on-line media at the end of installation. Both of those steps are optional - say no, and you should be able to complete the installation without any network connection. I've done this many times on my laptop without being connected to a network.

If it doesn't work for you, we need more details. Which ISO are you using, exactly where in the installation does it fail, and what is the error message.

Re: I give up due to wireless

PostPosted: Nov 27th, '20, 12:20
by morgano
live ISOs probably allow that, but I don't like Plasma or GNOME
We also have live iso of Xfce, in both 32 and 64 bit. Once installed you can add and whatever DE we support. -That is also true if you install Plasma or Gnome Lives, but the downloads are bigger.

But anyway it would be nice to track down the problem with Classical installer iso. I, as well as Martin and many others have accomplished offline installs before. If there is an issue it would be nice to track down and improve.