Bug#779313: Sid installer broken - wrong branch in apt sources.list
Control: reopen -1
Control: reassign -1 live-build
Control: retitle -1 live-build: non-live d-i not configured correctly
On Fri, 2015-02-27 at 22:26 +0100, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> jnqnfe <jnqnfe@gmail.com> (2015-02-27):
> > Control: retitle -1 Sid d-i's are actually Jessie d-i's
>
> That's no news: unstable is where stuff targeted at testing is staged,
> and we want the jessie installer to go through there as well.
>
> And that's still not a bug…
It was news to me. d-i is significantly different to most other binaries
available in the archives; as you obviously know, it's not a normal
package, it's a set of kernel image and initrd files (and a few others)
that are kept outside of the package pool directory. I didn't know how
exactly you handled releasing new versions of it. While perhaps new
builds might be made available in unstable before testing, I thought
that copies of d-i might be built and uploaded to their testing and
unstable directories independently and directly, i.e. without involving
the normal package transition mechanism and with their respective dist
names hardcoded. Since the sid copy was identical to the testing copy I
incorrectly reasoned that either this was accidental, or perhaps you saw
little to no use case for building a sid-specific copy and therefore you
were just uploading the jessie one to sid. In hindsight, if I had looked
at PTS I would have seen that there is indeed a transition.
Ultimately I wrote down what I had observed and submitted it to initiate
a dialogue through which to figure out what exactly was wrong and what
to do about it, and we are getting there.
I changed the title of the bug report in my last message simply to
better reflect what I understood at that point to be the cause of the
problem that we are discussing.
> > Right, so to get an installer that will work correctly as a Sid
> > installer, you have to build a copy as such. This is what I assumed
> > would be the case when I filed the bug.
>
> Why don't you set the variable(s) you want or need in your bootloader?
Because you didn't tell me that I can!
Instead of spending a load of time researching how to tell d-i what dist
to install, I took the opportunity to just ask you. You provided info on
how to build my own copy of d-i with the dist changed to the version
needed. Quite reasonably I believed this therefore was the only way to
do it, since you didn't tell me otherwise, and hence came my assertion
that a copy of d-i pre-built with 'sid'/'unstable' specified was needed.
If you'd briefly laid out all the various options available to me in
your previous reply (or at least just said that it can be done with
preseeding and directed me to the manual), this discussion would have
taken a much different path.
I'll ignore much of the rest of your response since this makes most of
it irrelevant.
Since it is clear now that there is no issue on d-i's side, and the
fault lies with live-build failing to configure d-i properly (since it
seems much more reasonable for live-build to apply a config against the
existing d-i builds, than require yourself to supply pre-built sid
copies of d-i), I'm reassigning this to live-build now.
> > live-build downloads pre-built copies of d-i from the archives to
> > bundle into the image it generates, alongside a copy of all available
> > udebs. We don't want to have to hack live-build to obtain d-i source,
> > set the release type and build it, just to ensure the installer will
> > work correctly for Sid users, if it can at all possibly be avoided.
>
> I already pointed out that jessie is the default. That doesn't mean you
> can't install something else. See the manual and/or the example preseed
> file (mirror/suite && mirror/udeb/suite; see logic in net-retriever).
You previously pointed out that jessie is the default, as I can see it
is in the d-i code/configs you pointed me to, and in doing so you
indicated how one might build d-i with a different dist set. You didn't
suggest that there were ways to get a pre-built copy of d-i to install a
different dist until this email I am replying to now.
I have found an example preseed file with the settings you refer to
here, so I can add that to the list of possible solutions.
I also found the d-i wiki. I notice in the FAQ under the heading "How
can I install sid (unstable) with DebianInstaller?", "Start the
installation in expert mode. After selecting a mirror you will be asked
which distribution to install: stable, testing or unstable." I see no
such question during expert mode install. Presumably this is outdated
and since writing this you started fixing a default of 'stable' (or
'jessie'), so it is no longer shown.
> > I have developed another concern. I am not nearly familiar enough with
> > d-i, but I am getting an impression that building the installer might
> > incorporate some udeb packages directly into that installer, while
> > others are loaded from the disk as necessary.
>
> Or from the network.
Sure.
> > Is that correct? If so, could there also be potential compatibility
> > issues using the pre-built Sid (actually Jessie) d-i with udebs from
> > Sid, as users end up with in their image generated by live-build
> > (unless they opt for live-build to use the daily d-i build). I have
> > recently been experimenting a bit with such an image I built with
> > live-build, and I encountered and reported a couple of bugs. I am now
> > worried that such compatibility issues may actually have played a part
> > in the occurrence of those bugs.
>
> A recurring issue is kernel ABI bumps breaking netboot images. Others
> are OK, so shrug.
Fine. Thanks.
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