Hi debian-boot!
After helping/discussing debian-installer on the debian-powerpc list
and reading the installation manual, I must say that if I understand
how d-i works, the manual does not do justice to d-i.
I think of first stage d-i as a three part process, where each step
needs to load files from a medium to RAM. The manual fails to describe
that each of these steps are almost independent of each other. I think
this leads to confusion, especially under utilization of the netboot
images.
The old installer had only two steps (A and C below), and the current
manual still reflects that.
A. How to *start* the debian-installer?
1. Boot from removable media that has an installer-image on its boot
block (e.g. CDROM, floppy, usb)
2. Use a bootloader from within a existing operating system (yaboot,
BootX, penguin)
2b. (possible, but not very common) Use a native bootloader (yaboot,
grub, lilo) installed on harddisk)
3. Netboot (pxe or other methods gets a bootloader by dhcp and tftp) (pxelinux or yaboot loads (by tftp) the kernel and initrd needed)
B. From where is the debian-installer to get its *own modules* (needed for its own functioning)?
1. From the removable media (CDROM or usb) that started the debian-installer at boot
2. From .iso-file on local harddisk (Filesystem must be readable by the debian-installer with modules in the initrd)
3. From the net (internet or local debian-mirror)
C. From where is the debian-installer to get the software that will *install*?
C1: The base system
1. From the removable media (CDROM or usb) that started the debian-installer at boot
2. From .iso-file on local harddisk (Filesystem must be readable by the debian-installer with modules in the initrd)
3. From the net (internet or local debian-mirror)
[Reboot here]
C2: Additional packages
1. From removable media (CDROM or usb)
2. From .iso-file on local harddisk
3. From the net (internet or local debian-mirror)
Q1: Are these three questions the relevant ones for the d-i user?
Q2: Are these the relevant possible answers to those questions?
Q3: Is it correct that you control B by choosing what images you will use?
Q4: Can *any image* be started in any of the tree ways outlined in A?
If so, netboot does NOT imply a tftp boot, which one might believe since netboot is only mentioned in the context of tftp in the installation manual.
Q5: Is the following correct?
"Business" means B:1
"Hd-media" means B:2
"Netboot" means B:3
Q6: Can you choose C1 and C2 at install time (if you run the
installer at a low enough priority)?
Depending on the answers on the above questions, I might rewrite parts
of the installation manual.
--
Hans Ekbrand (http://sociologi.cjb.net) <hans@sociologi.cjb.net>
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