Re: Support for both 'normal' and 'live' installer
On Wed, 2020-04-22 at 22:29 +0000, dbgr wrote:
> On 2020-04-21 04:49, jnqnfe@gmail.com wrote:
> > I have not played with the "live" type installer before, I've only
> > ever
> > used "cdrom".
> >
> > From what I can understand from the code and manual, if you choose
> > "live" mode, a udeb (debian-installer package) 'live-installer' is
> > bundled with the other d-i udeb packages in your image.
> >
> > With the live-installer udeb present, what then happens is that
> > this
> > automatically gets run as one of the install steps when running the
> > installer.
>
> That was my understanding too. And, in fact a
> 'live-installer_57_{i386,amd64}.udeb is located in the pool-udeb of
> the
> generated image.
>
> > However, you can setup a "preseed" file to disable it automatically
> > running, with it therefore becoming an optional install step which
> > you
> > can choose whether or not to run during installation (expert mode
> > if
> > not also others gives you a list of stages you can manually
> > trigger).
> > If you choose to execute the live-installer stage then you get a
> > "live"
> > installation, if you choose to skip it then you get a normal
> > installation.
> >
> > So no, live-build does not create two sets of alternate install
> > menu
> > entries.
> >
> > Look into this I can see that the man page is out of date and needs
> > fixing. The path it specifies will not be used. I got the below
> > correct
> > paths from looking at the actual code.
> >
> > To use this feature, you should:
> > 1) write "live-installer/enable=false" (without quotes) into either
> > config/preseed/FILE.cfg or config/preseed/FILE.cfg.installer,
> > (replacing FILE with whatever filename you want to use).
> > 2) for iso|iso-hybrid|hdd images, you must use --debian-installer-
> > preseedfile "preseed.cfg".
> >
> > wrt. that fixed filename for step #2, it must be exactly
> > "preseed.cfg"
> > trust me, I've determined that from reading the code, it refers to
> > the
> > filename of the file that actually ends up in your image, which d-i
> > needs pointing to, and this file is created by live-build with the
> > contents of all of your config preseed files copied into it. There
> > are
> > some bits of code as well as the manual that need updating to clear
> > this up and make it more simple (which I'm adding to my todo list).
> > For
> > now you must specify exactly that as the filename for that option
> > for
> > those image types for it to work.
>
> So, I followed your instructions and the final image ended up with a
> pressed.cfg in the 'install' folder. The contents of it been the
> single
> line "live-installer/enable=false" (without quotes). But when trying
> to
> install, been a 'normal' or 'expert' installation, I get the
> following
> warning:
>
> [!!] Load debconf preconfiguration file
>
> Failed to process the preconfiguration file
>
> The installer failed to process the preconfiguration file from
> file:///cdrom/install/preseed.cfg. The file may be corrupt.
>
> After that I tried to put "d-i" in front of
> "live-installer/enable=false" in the
> 'config/preseed/FILE.cfg.installer'
> hoping that it was a syntax error, but got the same error again
> trying
> to install.
>
> I tried to diagnose if it was a permission or a 'path' error, but
> did
> not arrive in any conclusion :-/
>
> Do you have any clue on what may be happening? Or how could I
> diagnose
> this?
>
> Thank you
Sorry I should have been more clear, I was focussed on figuring out how
to update the instructions per changes in live-build that the manual
and manpage have not kept up with, not so much the correctness of the
formatting of the preseed file content itself, which I did not expect
to likely be wrong.
Doing a little googling into this aspect, I've come across the
following format:
d-i live-installer/enable false
Note the space instead of an equals, and indeed prefixing with "d-i ".
I hope that fixes the problem for you. I'll add it to the todo list as
another fix to be made. :)
Reply to: