Native support for Areca 188x devices is available in > 2.6.37 linux kernel.
However mainstream kernel is still at 2.6.32, meaning that you need to perform some trickery to install a Areca card onto Debian. The following is my method.
I compiled the latest Areca driver onto a debian system that was already running, download the source from the areca website, and build the driver. Place the driver in a location where it is accessible, the easiest method would be to have the driver on a web accessible url for later retrieval.
Burn a netinstaller ISO to a USB key and boot the desired system.
Following the bouncing ball prompts for installation, when you get to detect drives, escape to a shell and find your way to the following directory
/lib/modules/2.6.32.
delete acrmsr.ko and copy across your newly compiled acrmsr.ko areca driver that you built in the first step.
exit the shell and continue the installation.
When the system finishes installing. DO NOT REBOOT. go back into the shell and chroot into the target directory like this
chroot /target
go to the driver directory
/lib/modules/2.6.32.
delete the driver and re-download the new arcmsr.ko file.
now we just need to update the initramfs
update-initramfs -k all -u
A word of caution, if the kernel is upgraded you must perform these steps again, ensuring that the initramfs is also updated otherwise your system will be unbootable!
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