Bug#785512: regression: cannot find iso image on usb stick any more
On 2015-06-01 14:52, Brian Potkin wrote:
> On Mon 01 Jun 2015 at 00:51:58 +0900, Norbert Preining wrote:
>>> There are at least three ways to boot a netinst ISO from a USB stick. An
>>
>> Hmm, I didn't find *one* that leaves the sstick useable for other things,
>> and allows to boot into a variety of other rescue iso images etc
>> at the same time. Please let me know which one?
>
> Surely the method you describe on your blog and the use of the hd-media
> method allows this? Another method is to partition the stick. The grub
> directory and the ISO images to use with loopback can be on the larger
> partition. Then dd the firmware ISO to the second partition and boot it
> with a stanza like
>
> menuentry "Debian 8.0.0 i386 netinst with firmware" {
> search --label --set=root "Debian 8.0.0 i386 1"
> linux /install.386/vmlinuz
> initrd /install.386/initrd.gz
> }
Am I wrong in assuming that most of these steps could be avoided if
iso-scan were included in the CD initrd?
> The author of iso-scan has this to say:
>
> iso-scan is part of the Debian installer[1].
>
> However, it is only included in the hd-media initrd. There is no reason
> to include it on the regular CD initrd, because isohybrid allows
> mounting the USB stick directly. (Not a loop-mount of an iso file
> included in some disk, which the hd-media initrd handles.)
>
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2013/09/msg00097.html
In an age where the cheapest USB drive (at 5€) will get you 16GB, and
10€ will get you a 32GB, with sufficient space for 3 resp. 7 full DVD
images, perhaps this statement should be revisited.
Having a single USB drive with eg multiple Jessie images, say for
various popular architectures, and without having to resort to
hd-media[1], would be nice.
Regards,
Christian
[1] I know this is lazy, but locating and downloading all the relevant
media, and keeping them up-to-date really is tedious to me. Compare this
to GRML or Ubuntu images, for example, where the update process is
basically just copying the ISO to the drive, and maybe perhaps updating
the pathname (of an image) in grub.conf.
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