Hi: The e1000e driver of the debian intaller stable version (2.6.26.2), contains a bug that in net installations makes net installs fail.
This bug is explaned here<https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=451855>, basically the ethttool interface of the e1000e driver, returns "2" instead of "1" when the driver is asked about the link and the interface has link. In the d-i, the netfg questions the drivers via ethtool interface, and it fails beacause he is waiting for 1 instead of 2 as the link up answer: if (ethtool_lite (*ifaces) == 1) /* CONNECTED */ { defiface = strdup(*ifaces); interface_down(*ifaces); break; } So, the netfg does not detect the correct interface and falls in the first one, if this is not the interface used for restoration, the choose-mirror fails because there is no link in the configured interface, and the installation fails. The fix, can be done using a newer version of the installer, or patching the installer kernel with the fix<http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/davem/net-next-2.6.git;a=commitdiff;h=56e1f82968af79f70902008098a4687198142ce7>, or providing a patched version of the netfg to the remote systems. This is a problem of a buggy driver, not of the d-i, but i think that it's interesting to make it public in this list, and more since many cards are being migrated from e1000 to e1000e driver (e.g. 82573L) and with a debian installer update the net installation fails. BR: Jon Ander Ortiz
