TL;DR: Non-free hardware drivers, dumb internet service providers... What a mess!


Dear UNIX diary,

Both of my laptops have half installed OSes (debian) and do not boot.

I can't install anything on my third laptop as it has a 32 bit UEFI and a 64 bit processor, and is now broken anymay.

I have one USB key with debian netinstall, but to get internet with the cable, I need to connect via a web page, and there is no browser included in the ISO (not even text mode nor cURL).

Tethering from Android does not works with debian (it would have worked as I con open the connection page from the phone before tethering).

Using the wifi does not work, as all of my devices wireless controller use proprietary drivers that are obvously not included in any of these installation images.

I could try to use a raspberry pi, but I have no adapter from HDMI to VGA (still the standard in France, even if it is old), and don't even have a VGA cable. My other Raspberry have a screen board connected with GPIO, but the provided image needs configuration before the console to be displayed on the screen.

Last solution: using my android phone as a bootable media to install a distro, but then I will have to downgrade android from 5.x.x to 4.x.x because all versions with fancy material design can not get this "drive droid" app to work. Fortunately, I can do it without a desktop, as I have a recovery mode that can install .zip images.

While I will have installed ArchLinux, which works, I will have to be fast, as the systemd journal somethig takes up to 98% of my CPU and make the laptop crash a few time after I booted. Then I cannot download a full iso, and have to look for a netinstall or a minimal lightweight.

So after trying:
- Debian (no browser),
- Alpine (no browser),
- Void (not booting),
- Arch (systemd journal eating all CPU),
- Crux (no browser),
- OpenBSD (no browser),
- NixOS (not installing due to configuration failure),
- Windows^K^K^K^K^K^K^K Ubuntu (I'm allergic)
- SliTaz (freezes during install),
- Devuan (no browser),
- ArchBang without systemd (does not fully boot);
- Gentoo (no browser);
I will then try a few other to see what boots and hos a browser.

Epilogue: Now with an OpenRC-based on both of my machine (alpine linux and obarun, arch-derived), I reallize that I learned about the choices distro-maker makes, and multiple different ways to install a distro. Moreover, now that I know that the story ends well, I find it rather fun.

There is always a way to linux.