Re: Debian iso installation incorrectly sets sources.list
hosack410@gmail.com wrote:
>
>This is a bug report. I tried to use the reporting system, but it did not
>seem to be appropriate. So, I will give a narrative:
>
>This is what happened.
>I decided to install Debian on my small machine (Asus eeePC 900A, 1GB
>ram, 4GB storage). So I selected debian-9.3.0-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso and
>put it onto a flash memory stick. Installation went ok, but
>later on when I did "apt install gcc", the installation program
>requested the insertion of the installation disk in the drive
>/media/cdrom. Why?
>
>Examination.
>The /etc/apt/sources.list file had "deb: cdrom:[<installation>..." as
>the first entry, and was not commented out. My installation medium
>was wrong!
>
>Solution.
>Comment out "deb: cdrom:[<installation>..." in sources.list.
>
>Discussion.
>There are 2 problems:
>(1) Installation should not put the installation medium in the
>sources.list, at least not without asking the user,
>since the medium may be reused.
This is a long-standing design decision that probably merits
re-examination, yes. The current logic assumes:
* if you've used a "netinst" to install, then you won't want to use
it again later, so it will be used by d-i then commented out later.
* if you've used a bigger (set of) image(s), then you most likely
will want to use this again in the future. This is to support
people using CD/DVD media sets for installations. We should
probably drop this for the single-CD xfce media at least.
>(2) Installation should keep track of the installation medium;
>if necessary by asking the user.
> (2) reflects a wider problem: Debian has a legacy of
>assuming CD or DVD installation. But much is now done by
>flash memory sticks. Debian should change to reflect this.
>For example, the iso file names might be "large" (or "full")
>or "small" (or "base"), not "DVD" or "CD". References
>to "CD" or "DVD" should be replaced by reference to the
>"installation medium", unless "CD" is actually necessary. Etc.
Agreed, yes. The way we use USB media in the installer at the moment
is to make them appear just like CDs. That works, but leads to odd
messages. We should fix up those messages, at the very least. It's on
my list...
--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
We don't need no education.
We don't need no thought control.
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