Re: Towards a custom personalized Debian installer
On 09/17/2020 05:14 PM, Felix Miata wrote:
Richard Owlett composed on 2020-09-17 04:25 (UTC-0500):
Anssi Saari wrote:
Richard Owlett writes:
The default of copying an ISO file to a device is inconvenient for my
peculiar goals.
I want an executable installer resident on an ext4 formatted partition.
It must be possible. A testable installer preceded ISO format.
I'm working thru https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch04s03,
in particular extracting steps for "Manually copying files to the USB
stick — the flexible way".
What reference am I missing?
I've installed Debian a couple of times with debootstrap. Or actually
grml-debootstrap since I had grml on a USB stick for rescue use
anyways. It does need some kind of Linux environment to run in, not
necessarily Debian though.
I unsuccessfully tried to us use debootstrap several years ago.
Right now I specifically want to use the normal Debian installer on an
editable file system.
Did you happen to notice what I wrote in
<https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2020/09/msg00441.html>?
As long has you can have internet access for the process,
An explicit goal is the ability to do an install without *ANY* internet.
The origin of this goal was when I only had dial-up connectivity.
Currently I have a low data cap and do multiple experimental installs.
To further my understanding of the Debian installer:
I want an executable installer resident on an ext4 formatted partition.
[implication -> the partition is writable]
all you need is a
bootloader able to load two files from a mountable partition, installation kernel
and installation initrd, which starts a net install, downloading the latest
versions of only what is actually needed for your installation. Substantial
pre-configuration is possible via the installation kernel's command line, some of
which is evident in that list post.
IIRC, these two files can also be used to start an installation from .iso or
installation sources located locally. Details I don't know, as I've not tried this
process in much too long ago to remember, but the latter sounds like a match for
what you are looking for.
That is tantalizingly close.
As it is said, "The devil is in the details."
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