Re: Problems installing from flash drive.
On Fri, Feb 05, 2021 at 08:54:55AM -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:
> I wish to do custom Debian install on a machine *WITHOUT*:
> 1. functional mechanical CD/DVD drive.
> 2. without internet access.
>
> One can purchase a flash drive containing ISO images of all installation
> DVDs of the desired architecture. It is straight forward to do a default
> install after copying dvd1.iso to a flash drive.
>
> Resulting problems include:
> 1. undesired programs clutter machine (e.g. LibreOffice).
> 2. project critical software cannot be installed as Synaptic
> asks for a non-existent DVD be inserted in a non-existent drive.
>
> One vendor has a shell program which loop mounts the ISO files in such a way
> that *IF* you have the purchased flash drive installed you can use Synaptic.
>
> The Debian documentation does not appear to describe how apt &/or Synaptic
> can access ISO files on dedicated partition.
>
> Are the instructions to create a "local repository" composed of appropriate
> ISO files?
>
> TIA
>
>
Things I learned today - someone wants us to make a 128GB flash drive image to have "all of Debian" on one flash
drive - see the discussion across on debian-cd.
You want to do a custom install of Debian without internet access: if you were doing this completely from scratch,
then I would recommend that you might want to have another machine with internet access to make images from all the
DVD image files by using jigdo.
Many things can be installed by using the first three DVDs or so - rarely if ever are you likely to need all 16.
To make the images from 4 to 16, you would need to use jigdo if you were doing this entirely yourself.
If you have a flash drive with the .iso files for DVD1 to DVD3 (or 1-16 if you have them): Write DVD1 to another
flash drive and use it to boot and install. For myself, I would always use the text mode installer and the expert
mode: do a very simple install, installing the minimum you can get away with: base files and maybe an ssh server.
Reboot.
Part way through the install, you may be prompted as to whether you want to scan another disk: if so, see if you can
arrange to loop mount the next image.
At that point, the installer will have written DVD1 in /etc/apt/sources.list as the location to pull files from.
Mount the flash drive with the images on under /mnt, loop mounting individual iso images if needed. Use the command
"apt-cdrom add" to add the individual DVDs This will read the manifests on each DVD in turn and effectively add the
contents of each disk to cache.
At that point, you can apt-get install / synaptic install anything you like: if apt needs you to "swap DVDs", you
will get a prompt to tell you which .iso needs inserting / mounting. It's slow but it will work.
You can always install files in small numbers and check what you're doing: if you don't want LibreOffice, don't
install it.
All the very best,
Andy C.
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