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Re: Preseeding from USB



OMG, thanks again for the fast and comprehensive answer. 

On Sun, 02 Sep 2012 19:33:56 -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:

>> Is it doing installation from the CD or from the Internet? I mean, do I
>> have to user a certain CD, eg Debian installation CD, or it has nothing
>> with the CD media so I can put the proper boot up instruction in my
>> general-purpose, multi-boot USB key?
> 
> It depends upon the installation media.  There are CD/DVD images that
> install from hard media.  There are netinst images that boot from media
> and then install packages from the network.  The netinst images are the
> most useful and are highly recommended.  But you can also use small CD
> images that are completely self-contained to install a small system
> image.

This automated preseeded installation is a strange beast to me looking on 
paper and from other people's blogs, but having tried it, I just realized 
it is the same old Debian netinst, just the answers are pre-filled in the 
preseed file. Thus,

to put it into my general-purpose, multi-boot USB key, I just need to 
extract the vmlinuz and initrd.gz from the netinst ISO, and put a proper 
menu entry in my grub boot menu.

> I use preseeding to hook in a final finishing up installation script.
> 
>   d-i preseed/late_command string wget -O/target/var/tmp/bootstrap 
http://localwww/bootstrap/bootstrap; in-target sh /var/tmp/bootstrap
> 
> That runs a script and allows me to do additional configuration in
> that script.  In that script I install additional packages such as
> openssh-server and set up host keys and other things. 

I install openssh-server with d-i pkgsel/include:

# Individual additional packages to install
d-i pkgsel/include	string localepurge openssh-server build-essential 
rsync less

but I guess to set up host keys and other things, better do them all 
together in the late_command hook. 

BTW, I highly recommend to install localepurge in pkgsel/include. It use 
to be the most annoying package for me during installation, because I 
have to answer so many questions. Now I have it all taken care of:

#######################
# Packages Preseeding 
#######################
# Depending on what software you choose to install, or if things go wrong
# during the installation process, it's possible that other questions may
# be asked. You can preseed those too, of course. To get a list of every
# possible question that could be asked during an install, do an
# installation, and then run these commands:
#   debconf-get-selections --installer > file
#   debconf-get-selections >> file

### Pkg:localepurge

localepurge     localepurge/nopurge     multiselect     en_US
# Really remove all locales?
localepurge     localepurge/none_selected       boolean false
# Also delete localized man pages?
localepurge     localepurge/mandelete   boolean true
# localepurge will not take any action
localepurge     localepurge/remove_no   note
# Inform about new locales?
localepurge     localepurge/dontbothernew       boolean false
# Display freed disk space?
localepurge     localepurge/showfreedspace      boolean true
# Display verbose output?
localepurge     localepurge/verbose     boolean false
# Accurate disk space calculation?
localepurge     localepurge/quickndirtycalc     boolean true

Thanks again for your kind help,
Really appreciate it.

-- 
Tong (remove underscore(s) to reply)
  http://xpt.sourceforge.net/techdocs/
  http://xpt.sourceforge.net/tools/


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