We have a Haswell motherboard with onboard ethernet controllers which are not supported in the Precise (3.2) kernel. However, we're using netboot installation, and we'd really like to stick with the LTS version. Once the Precise install is completed, we can install the linux-generic-lts-saucy package, which gets us the ethernet hardware support which is ultimately required.

So, our options are:

• Plug in a USB-Ethernet (or even wifi) dongle, perform the install that way.
• Modify the Precise installer to somehow include the required driver (a udeb, or some early_command invocation?)
• Modify the Raring installer (3.8 kernel, which supports the device) to instead install Precise.

If it's possible the third option seems like the simplest and most logical to me.

Now, we are already using the precise-updates installer (Aug 2013), as opposed to the original April 2012 installer. However, the precise-updates installer still appears to use the 3.2 kernel.

I'm already comfortable with preseeding and modifying the netboot initrd. So my question is, can I somehow modify the Raring/Saucy netboot initrd to instead install Precise?

Thanks.