Re: "Bug" in Debian Installer?
On 4/15/23 02:36, Andrew Wood wrote:
Ive just used the Debian 11 installer ISO running from a USB stick to do
an install (AMD64/UEFI) on another USB stick to use as a 'portable PC'.
When it got to the Grub install stage I was expecting it to ask me which
disk I wanted Grub installed on as it has in the past but instead it did
not.
When I came to reboot the PC I found not only had it put Grub on the USB
it had also put on the PCs NVMe SSD overwriting the Windows bootloader
on there.
Surely it should have prompted which disk I wanted it on? I thought it
was only Windows that trashed other peoples bootloaders ;)
Regards
Andrew
I recently had a similarly confusing experience with a Dell Precision
3630 with an NVMe PCIe SSD, Windows 10 Pro, and BIOS Setup configured as
follows:
"System Configuration" -> "SATA Operation" -> "AHCI"
I installed a 2.5" SATA SSD, inserted a debian-11.6.0-amd64-netinst CD,
booted the CD, and installed Debian:
"Debian GNU/Linux UEFI Installer menu" -> "Install"
...
"Partitioning method" -> "Manual" -> <2.5" SATA SSD>
...
In the past, d-i "Install" would prompt me regarding GRUB. This time,
it did not.
When d-i was complete, the computer could boot either Windows or Debian,
with suitable BIOS Setup
"General" -> "Boot Sequence"
When I moved the 2.5" SATA SSD to a homebrew Intel DQ67SW computer and
configured BIOS Setup:
"Boot" -> "UEFI Boot" -> "Enable"
The SSD would not boot.
I zeroed the SSD and installed Debian again. The SSD now works in both
computers.
I later discovered that the first install created a directory and put
files into the Dell's ESP (!). I did not select this, nor do I desire
it. This is a defect with d-i:
2023-04-15 15:10:34 root@taz ~
# ls -ld /mnt/nvme0n1p1/EFI/debian
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 16 22:19 /mnt/nvme0n1p1/EFI/debian
2023-04-15 15:10:36 root@taz ~
# ls -l /mnt/nvme0n1p1/EFI/debian
total 5892
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 108 Mar 16 22:19 BOOTX64.CSV
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 84648 Mar 16 22:19 fbx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 121 Mar 16 22:19 grub.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4150720 Mar 16 22:19 grubx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 845480 Mar 16 22:19 mmx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 934240 Mar 16 22:19 shimx64.efi
So, I agree that d-i "Install" choice has bug(s) when installing Debian
into a computer with multiple storage devices.
David
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