Hi,

I remember reading it somewhere in a Debian doc (though I can no
longer find it) that only netboot automatically installs the base
system from a mirror, other media install from the media itself and
then upgrade via the mirror if allowed.

I wonder if it's possible to force the installer to use the mirror for installing the base system? Currently, my installer installs two
versions of kernels, one from the media, the other from upgrading via
the mirror, which seems like a waste.

I couldn't find the preseed directive that controls this. Would be
grateful if someone could shed some light.

Regards,
Glen

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On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 12:05:53PM +0800, Glen Huang wrote:

Hi,

I remember reading it somewhere in a Debian doc (though I can no
longer find it) that only netboot automatically installs the base
system from a mirror, other media install from the media itself and
then upgrade via the mirror if allowed.

I wonder if it's possible to force the installer to use the mirror for installing the base system? Currently, my installer installs two
versions of kernels, one from the media, the other from upgrading via
the mirror, which seems like a waste.

This is intended behaviour, in some sense. If you install from DVD / other media, as soon as it reaches a mirror, it will update from the package list there - and, in fact, you often see it updating packages in the course of
the install at that point. That ensures that you're up to date at the
point you touch a mirror so that you don't have to apt-get update or
whatever immediately afterwards.

This can cause problems if there is a kernel ABI bump or whatever and your netboot kernel has changed significantly on the mirror (if your netinst
is too old / you're tracking dailies from testing, for example) but that's
an acceptable situation, I think. It nromally resolves quickly - or by
using an up to date netboot.

On first reboot, the newest kernel will be used anyway: an autoremove
would remove the fallback kernel since you didn't boot from it, if you
wished to do that.

I couldn't find the preseed directive that controls this. Would be
grateful if someone could shed some light.

Regards,
Glen

All best, as ever,

Andrew Cater

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On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 12:05:53PM +0800, Glen Huang wrote:

Hi,

I remember reading it somewhere in a Debian doc (though I can no
longer find it) that only netboot automatically installs the base
system from a mirror, other media install from the media itself and
then upgrade via the mirror if allowed.

I wonder if it's possible to force the installer to use the mirror for installing the base system? Currently, my installer installs two
versions of kernels, one from the media, the other from upgrading via
the mirror, which seems like a waste.

I couldn't find the preseed directive that controls this.

:-)



Visit https://www.debian.org with a recent webbrowser
Click "download" to go to https://www.debian.org/download
Qouting that page:

Thank you for downloading Debian!

This is Debian 11, codenamed bullseye, netinst, for 64-bit PC (arch).

If your download does not start automatically, click debian-11.2.0-arch-netinst.iso.

Download checksum: SHA512SUMS Signature


The page presents also downloading debian-11.2.0-arch-netinst.iso.

Would be grateful if someone could shed some light.

It is "netinst" that you are looking for.
At https://www.debian.org/distrib/ is that documented.
Page https://www.debian.org/download has the "distrib page" linked
in the section "Other Installers". Text from the distrib page:

A small installation image: can be downloaded quickly and should be
recorded onto a removable disk. To use this, you will need a machine
with an Internet connection.


Page not linked on the download page
is www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html Introduction text from that page:

In the world of hackers, the kind of answers you get to your technical
questions depends as much on the way you ask the questions as on the
difficulty of developing the answer. This guide will teach you how
to ask questions in a way more likely to get you a satisfactory answer.

Regards,
Glen

Groeten
Geert Stappers
--
Silence is hard to parse

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On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 09:53:42AM +0100, Holger Wansing wrote:

Hi,

Am 21. Februar 2022 05:05:53 MEZ schrieb Glen Huang <[email protected]>:

I wonder if it's possible to force the installer to use the mirror for >>installing the base system?

Yes, there's a solution for this:
just use the netboot image :-)

I guess this is the most obvious answer for such question.

Yup, exactly.

One of the main points of including the base system on bigger media is
to have it all available there as a consistent set...

--
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. [email protected] Who needs computer imagery when you've got Brian Blessed?

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Hi,

Am 21. Februar 2022 05:05:53 MEZ schrieb Glen Huang <[email protected]>:

I wonder if it's possible to force the installer to use the mirror for >installing the base system?

Yes, there's a solution for this:
just use the netboot image :-)

I guess this is the most obvious answer for such question.

Holger


--
Sent from /e/ OS on Fairphone3

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On Mon, Feb 21, 2022 at 06:19:30PM +0800, Glen Huang wrote:

@Geert

It is "netinst" that you are looking for.

I am using netinst. Appreciate the detailed steps listed, but with all
due respect, my question was about how to make the installer install
the base system from the mirror and not the installation media. The
listed steps don't seem to help with that.

@Andrew @Holger @Steve
I take that as it's not possible to force the installer to install the
base system from the mirror? I guess the netboot image probably does something special.

Guess I'll just have to let the installer upgrade then.

@Andrew

an autoremove would remove the fallback kernel since you didn't boot from it

I'm not sure that's the case. I tried running "apt-get autoremove" in
a newly installed Debian 11 with multiple kernels in /boot, no
packages got removed. `apt-cache rdepends --installed linux-image-5.10.0-10-amd64` (which was the old kernel) showed "linux-image-amd64" depended on it, so it was not removed. "apt-cache
depends --installed linux-image-amd64" showed it depended on "linux-image-5.10.0-11-amd64".

Regards,
Glen

Netboot provides you a base kernel, an initrd and enough of the installer to start from there.

The netinst / DVD includes the base systme on it - but will still update
if packages are newer on the mirror.

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

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Glen Huang, le lun. 21 févr. 2022 18:19:30 +0800, a ecrit:

@Geert

It is "netinst" that you are looking for.

I am using netinst. Appreciate the detailed steps listed, but with all
due respect, my question was about how to make the installer install
the base system from the mirror and not the installation media. The
listed steps don't seem to help with that.

You can use netboot, which does not have any .deb file.

Samuel

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@Geert

It is "netinst" that you are looking for.

I am using netinst. Appreciate the detailed steps listed, but with all
due respect, my question was about how to make the installer install
the base system from the mirror and not the installation media. The
listed steps don't seem to help with that.

@Andrew @Holger @Steve
I take that as it's not possible to force the installer to install the
base system from the mirror? I guess the netboot image probably does
something special.

Guess I'll just have to let the installer upgrade then.

@Andrew

an autoremove would remove the fallback kernel since you didn't boot from it

I'm not sure that's the case. I tried running "apt-get autoremove" in
a newly installed Debian 11 with multiple kernels in /boot, no
packages got removed. `apt-cache rdepends --installed linux-image-5.10.0-10-amd64` (which was the old kernel) showed "linux-image-amd64" depended on it, so it was not removed. "apt-cache
depends --installed linux-image-amd64" showed it depended on "linux-image-5.10.0-11-amd64".

Regards,
Glen

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