Richard Owlett wrote: > It seems to have been lost in the shuffle, but do NOT have internet > NOR high speed internet connectivity at home so all of my test > installs are being done with a purchased set of Debian 6.0.5 DVDs > with preseed.cfg on a USB stick. Sorry. In order to be able to help you with suggestions we needed to learn more about the process ourselves. Only by understanding it further could we then make a reasonable suggestion to you. And that learning caused a lot of discussion in this thread that as far as you were concerned wasn't directly appropriate to you. It was but only as a way to build a foundation for help you. And because we also have an itch to scratch it helps us too. I suggest one of two different options. Option 1. Copy the contents of your booting DVD to a USB stick. If your BIOS will boot from usb then this provides a convenient way to customize it. After copying the DVD to the usb stick then copy in the preseed.cfg file. At that point it will boot from the usb stick and automatically locate the preseed.cfg file. http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s03.html.en#usb-copy-isohybrid Debian CD and DVD images can now be written directly a USB stick, which is a very easy way to make a bootable USB stick. Simply choose a CD or DVD image that will fit on your USB stick. The CD or DVD image you choose should be written directly to the USB stick, overwriting its current contents. For example, when using an existing GNU/Linux system, the CD or DVD image file can be written to a USB stick as follows: # cat debian.iso > /dev/sdX # sync I haven't worked through this above myself so there is almost certainly something I haven't written down about it that you will need to know. But that is one option. Option 2. Do you have a second machine in your house? An old laptop? And old system? Even a non-debian system? I would host a web server on that other system. Then with it on a local network (not the Internet but a local private network) then you could use a url path to it for the preseed file. The preseed file is tiny. The other machine could be anything and it would be sufficient to host the small file. > I use the "Automated install" option under "Advanced options" of the > installer. Pressing <TAB> shows "auto=true" and "priority=critical" > in the command line. I then append "file=/mnt/preseed.cfg". Of > course it comes to a crashing halt saying the configuration file > could not be found. Switching screens with ALT-F2 allows mounting > the USB stick. I think there should be a "better way". But I was > told on this forum "that's how it's done". It does seem like there should be a better way to do this completely standalone. Such as having the installer offer to mount the device first before using it. Or something. I need to try the exact method you are using so that I can become familiar with it. It does seem like there is room for improvement. Bob
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