Re: Debian iso installation incorrectly sets sources.list
David Wright wrote:
>On Wed 10 Jan 2018 at 11:34:57 (+0000), Steve McIntyre wrote:
...
>> 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.
>
>That sounds sensible â?¦
I've made this change now in my local copy of d-i and I'll be testing
shortly.
>> >(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...
>
>â?¦ but you can almost never win at this game because there'll always
>be someone who assumes or wants the opposite.
We could do a better job, nonetheless - I can totally understand
people being confused by us talking about "CD" media when they're
using DVDs, let alone if they're using a USB stick!
>eg they do a netinst but leave out a package necessary to get
>connected to the internet after they reboot;
>or they install from a full DVD but then decide their connectivity
>is good enough to rely instead entirely on the internet.
>
>Perhaps /etc/apt/sources.list could have a one-line pointer to a text
>file that explained the options available and how to achieve them.
At the very least, to go with the change above I've added code to
(conditionally) add the following comment in sources.list:
# This system was installed using small removable media
# (e.g. netinst, live or single CD). The matching "deb cdrom"
# entries were disabled at the end of the installation process.
# For information about how to configure apt package sources,
# see the sources.list(5) manual.
--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. steve@einval.com
"I suspect most samba developers are already technically insane... Of
course, since many of them are Australians, you can't tell." -- Linus Torvalds
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