Re: Installer annoyance - a bug? [SOLVED - loop mount .iso images]
On Mon, Jun 07, 2021 at 05:23:47AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> On 06/06/2021 09:51 AM, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> > On Sun, Jun 06, 2021 at 07:48:06AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:
> > > There is *functional/quality/?* difference between an install from a
> > > physical CD/DVD and from an "equivalent" flash drive.
> >
> > There's no functional difference: the .iso image is exactly the same.
>
> YOU ARE IN ERROR!
> There IS a functional difference *BECAUSE* the the image is identical.
> There is a hard-coded ASSUMPTION that the installation medium is a physical
> DVD.
>
There is no functional difference. None whatever.
I have just installed a machine from scratch using a flash drive with the
image of DVD1 written to it using dd.
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 3972317184 Jun 7 16:19 debian-10.9.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso
The .iso images are hybrid - so bootable from either physical media or USB.
I used the expert install method. I disconnected any ethernet cables. I did
not include any firmware. When the installer detected network hardware, I let
DHCP fail and selected to not configure the network at this time.
I selected a minimum install set - text only, no GUI so unchecked the box
for a desktop environment, unchecked the box for printing but did select an
ssh server - when this is put on a network, I might want to SSH into it.
That installed a bare minimum - 116 packages or thereabouts.
I rebooted the machine, having removed the flash drive at the appropriate
point.
/etc/apt/sources.list referenced DVD1 - all other entries were commented out
because the machine had no network.
I then replaced the flash drive with DVD1 on once the machine had safely
booted.
I ran the dmesg command as root to find out where the flash disk had been
mounted. On this machine it was /dev/sdc - the last line of the dmesg output.
I ran apt-cdrom add to see which mount point it needed the medium to be
mounted to. The default is /media/cdrom
I then loop mounted the drive to get access to the iso file system
mount -o loop -t iso9660 /dev/sdc /media/cdrom
cd /media/cdrom, type ls and you see the file structure of the iso file that
you booted from.
At that point, running apt-cdrom add and hitting enter a couple of times and
you can install packages e.g. apt install vim
umount /media/cdrom - unmounting the flash drive effectively - and you're
done.
If you have other .iso files for DVD2, DVD3, DVD4 or whatever on a USB stick
do exactly the same for those .iso files.
If you then install a large metapackage like GNOME, you may be prompted to
change disks - you now know how to do that.
If you want to get fancy, you can mount all four DVDs to different
mount points and use apt-cdrom to add them all at once.
>From what I understand from your earlier posts on debian-user you don't like
loop mounting but it is the way to do this in the canonical way.
The files - and the installer - behave identically for physical disks or
for .iso images when loop mounted.
Hope this helps - glad to be of use to someone who searches for this again
All the very best, as ever,
Andy Cater
> > [SNIP]
> > >
> > > Is there some way, during the initial installation, to drop to a terminal to
> > > specify additional packages to be installed? As preseeding can do
> > > essentially the same thing the required framework must exist.
> > >
>
> Is there some way, during the initial installation, to drop to a terminal to
> specify additional packages to be installed?
> { As preseeding can do essentially the same thing the required framework
> must exist.}
>
> The installation manual recognizes that flash drives exist but does not go
> far enough that the new user can have the same access to all the packages on
> THAT installation medium.
>
>
>
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