Re: arm64/aarch64 graphical debian-installer

[Paul Seelig <pseelig@rumbero.org>]

On 11/19/25 13:57, Paul Seelig wrote:
> Once there is a preseed.cfg file, the graphical installer stops 
> showing up and automatically resorts to the newt frontend on the 
> serial console.
With some trial and error, I finally found the following workaround for 
the issue:

Instead of adding the preseed.cfg file to the aarch64 installer's 
initrd, by instead loading it via kernel parameter, e.g., 
'preseed/file=/cdrom/install/gtk/preseed.cfg', the graphical installer 
not only starts up normally but also properly loads and uses the 
supplied preconfiguration, including the imprescindibe 
preseed/late_command string feature.

This appears to apply only to UEFI based systems and works equally fine 
on both aarch64 and amd64.

But when using this external preseed method with old BIOS based systems 
using isolinux the preseed.cfg file is ignored as well.
So for BIOS based systems booting via isolinux adding the preseed.cfg to 
the installer's initrd seems to be mandatory.

These differences in preseeed.cfg method differences between system 
architectures should probably be mentioned in the associated documentation.

https://bugs.debian.org/1116551 has been updated accordingly.

Thanks to everybody for helping to sort this out!

Regards,
Paul