Re: Preseeding - keyboard-configuration issue

[Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk>]

On Tue 18 Dec 2012 at 15:13:52 -0700, Bob Proulx wrote:

> Brian wrote:
> 
> > The correct way to supply a preseed file with auto=true is (I think) to
> > only use preseed/url= or url=. Now, is that glaringly obvious to you or
> > anyone else from section B.2.3. or elsewhere in the Manual?
> 
> The manual is a little vague.  But that is what they show in the
> examples.

This really bothered me. Why should url=file:///mnt/preseed.cfg work but
file=/mnt/preseed.cfg fail? Surely there cannot be anything special
about url= which does not apply to file= ? A file is a file irrespective
of the method used to load it into d-i.

It is instructive to use url= and file= with

    auto=true priority=low

added to the kernel command line after pressing TAB at the boot menu.

With

    auto=true priority=low url=url=file:///mnt/preseed.cfg

the preconfiguration file is available to load after the network is set
up. This makes sense; no network; no ablity to access a URL. Load the
file and the two delayed questions (language and keyboard) now become
visible in the main menu.

The preconfiguration file can be made available much earlier in the
install when file= is used. But loading it does not lead to the language
and keyboard questions being asked. Hence - no preseeding is possible.

After examining the source package for preseed this resulted in #696857.
The issue should be fixed in Wheezy at least.