Bug#905965: debian-installer: preseeding language fails

[Josua Mayer <josua.mayer97@gmail.com>]

Hi Phil,

Am 13.08.2018 um 16:08 schrieb Philip Hands:
> Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> writes:
>
>> On Sun, 2018-08-12 at 13:11 +0000, Josua Mayer wrote:
>>> Package: debian-installer
>>> Severity: normal
>>>
>>> Dear Maintainer,
>>>
>>> I have been trying to fully automate installing debian on the SolidRun Clearfog through a preseed file.
>>> However I cannot seem to skip the first two questions:
>>> [!!] Select a language --> English
>>> [!!] Select your location --> United Kingdom
>> [...]
>>
>> Depending on where the preseed file is, these questions may be asked
>> before the installer is able to load it.
>>
>> You can put the answers to these two questions on the kernel command
>> line.  See
>> <https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch05s03.html.en#preseed-args>.
Didn't try this yet so idk if it helps. I find auto=true to be much more
practical!
> Alternatively, if you're providing the preseed via a url (and I think
> for a least some of the other options for preseeding) you can specify
> auto=true, which delays these questions until after the preseed file is
> available, and thus makes your preseeding work -- this is the purpose of
> the various "Automatic Install" options in the boot menus.  They just add
> "auto=true" to the default kernel command line.
That piece is actually magic. Changing from plain auto to auto=true
makes these first two questions go away as expected!
Thank you very much for this pointer.

I couldn't find any mention of this on the wiki, and as I am only
hacking on arm devices of course I never got to see the boot menus.
>
> Cheers, Phil.
br
Josua