PXE booting a 'netinst' image (was: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release)

[Vincent.Mcintyre]

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 02:29:27AM +0100, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> Steve McIntyre  (2018-12-17):
> > But... The problem you're most likely seeing is caused by a simple
> > fact. The *netboot* image ends up downloading significant chunks of
> > the installer and the base system at runtime from the suite it
> > targets. For buster, that is still very much a moving target and it's
> > likely to already have incompatibilities with the released 20181206
> > netboot image.
> > 
> > Netboot images are *only* useful and safe when they exactly match the
> > state of the Debian release they're targeting. That's either a stable
> > release, or within a couple of days of the build happening if you're
> > looking at testing.
> > 
> > For any other purposes, IMHO you're massively better off using a
> > _netinst_ image instead. Or install stable and upgrade.
> 
> What Steve says is particularly true when there's a difference in major
> libc version (2.27 vs. 2.28; the latter has just migrated to testing
> right after the general block-udeb in britney was lifted).
> 

Thanks for the help. May I raise a related question?

Perhaps this is a doomed effort, please tell me if it is.
I have been trying to sort out a method of booting a buster netinst
image over the network, because I have hardware that needs the
buster kernel (I plan to install stretch with a backports kernel).
I want to be able to network boot because that makes it a lot easier
to supply preseed information than booting off a usb key.

I can get this to boot with PXE

LABEL buster_netinst
kernel memdisk
append iso initrd=debian/buster/amd64/netinst/netinst.iso raw vga=normal ---

But the installer gets stuck at cdrom-detect.
I can manually modprobe cdrom.ko but that doesn't seem to help,
cdrom-detect just repeats its search for installation media.

Is there some boot parameter I could give on the append line to
tell the installer it is being booted in this way?

Kind regards
Vince

support for OpenRD and Sheevaplug (was Re: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release)

[Vagrant Cascadian]

On 2018-12-17, Rick Thomas wrote:
>> On Dec 15, 2018, at 2:26 PM, Cyril Brulebois  wrote:
>> 
>> Hardware support changes
>> 
>> 
>> * debian-installer:
>>   - [armel] Disable OpenRD targets, no longer present in u-boot.
>
> Does this mean that my OpenRD hardware will no longer be supported in Buster?
> What about SheevaPlug hardware?  Is that still supported by upstream u-boot?
>
>> * u-boot:
>   …
>>   - [armel] Drop openrd targets (no longer supported upstream).
>
> Nice, physically small, reliable hardware…  A shame to see it go…

It's marked as Orphaned in upstream u-boot for 3 months, and failed to
build from source whenever it was I disabled it. With nobody working to
fix it upstream, I dropped it from the Debian u-boot package. You'll can
probably continue to use it with an old u-boot version.

It might continue to work with the buster kernels... I would strongly
recommend testing it and reporting and fixing bugs sooner than later if
you want to make sure it continues to be supported.

Sheevaplug continues to build and is listed as Maintained in upstream
u-boot, but it's an old enough platform that I'd recommend testing it
for those who want to ensure continued support...


live well,
  vagrant


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release

[Andreas Tille]

Hi Cyril,

thanks for the summary and all your work for the installer.  I have not
seen any mentioning of supporting Blends in the new installer.  I
remember that we talked about this at DebConf 16 that chances are good
that we finally will get the feature to select Blends right from the
installer.  Any idea what to do to get this done?

Kind regards

  Andreas.

-- 
http://fam-tille.de

Re: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release

[Vincent Danjean]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

  Hi,

Le 15/12/2018 à 23:26, Cyril Brulebois a écrit :
> The Debian Installer team[1] is pleased to announce the fourth alpha release 
> of the installer for Debian 10 "Buster".

  Would it be possible to have remarks about #913431 (partman-base:
Add support for kiB, MiB, ... input)?
  It is something I'am waiting for several years and releases. I
wrote a bug report with a patch about one month ago but I'm not
sure anyone look at it.

  In any case, many kudos for the installer. I really like its
modularity and its rescue form.
  Regards,
Vincent


PS: I'm not subscribed to debian-boot, I saw the mail on d-d-a.


-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-

iQIzBAEBCAAdFiEEE+JeSXDEY4vnrLgRlkfeY37Ht1EFAlwZCgEACgkQlkfeY37H
t1ExXA/8Cw85DhLjrMKxesI4MP4YNYbQmd3PfJBFXhOhVc+ym7AA2wkanXP6IDex
BmfwomA5DmC7da6qk81Zoc3ZSK++55M4680NXG5wGSaTxMdv3mO0lyk1PAhL3nZp
AMDj1Igb2uGPd+jp/KgOs4BV63P6E9hivXq9zrm+0624+5yJmcJ9R0O7O3WespXX
KhDKoAYQxKq2zPn289dY7eJY//PoqiURKbnnkIlIGpPLQjuPOPrTWSLBQWYnhopV
8zzvh1fJZrFgyPkJGQ7+/XIK8+rYd9J5KaxNG3lwjdZjcFjZ9y+Oc1okrWQEMQnq
ZP0n5/Z09JMe5KuIQMpuUlXDrOByRZ5a+oJQ9iDW6ymRLQxpQI1GjcnoT0JPlqQr
+ItF5ImlvFSFWbeabn06OmzwQsWJQqpiuaG/7mRS72YNvRK9mfa9KNanGfJR52C0
ToJGUp3VxW71BvETr3+u0b4JAkYdpQSdlENoYGP8AT8BolN0j35irclMkl9rLc04
CVbVh627Gtu3gA0YvGg95fd4ZFHLqC0fUBT7q6tiCHcM1cH9dZy+iwUPKVHcrXsC
7bMJYtP20mms39UlaSPjqtC/+Vv7ne0GfFGs7teFVh0QSCwrzhpId5AxuS/u5kOk
/ZoFGyTIo79hl/gkyUQw9VUKFXQRChIrzipETCs4xDCLgPn63+M=
=rprc
-END PGP SIGNATURE-

Re: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release

[Rick Thomas]

> On Dec 15, 2018, at 2:26 PM, Cyril Brulebois  wrote:
> 
> Hardware support changes
> 
> 
> * debian-installer:
>- [armel] Disable OpenRD targets, no longer present in u-boot.

Does this mean that my OpenRD hardware will no longer be supported in Buster?
What about SheevaPlug hardware?  Is that still supported by upstream u-boot?
   …
> * u-boot:
   …
>- [armel] Drop openrd targets (no longer supported upstream).

Nice, physically small, reliable hardware…  A shame to see it go…

>- u-boot-imx: Remove mx6cuboxi4x4 target, as ram is now properly
>  detected with mx6cuboxi.

Good news!  Glad to hear it.

Thanks for all your work!
Rick

Re: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release

[Vincent McIntyre]

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 02:29:27AM +0100, Cyril Brulebois wrote:
> Steve McIntyre  (2018-12-17):
> > But... The problem you're most likely seeing is caused by a simple
> > fact. The *netboot* image ends up downloading significant chunks of
> > the installer and the base system at runtime from the suite it
> > targets. For buster, that is still very much a moving target and it's
> > likely to already have incompatibilities with the released 20181206
> > netboot image.
> > 
> > Netboot images are *only* useful and safe when they exactly match the
> > state of the Debian release they're targeting. That's either a stable
> > release, or within a couple of days of the build happening if you're
> > looking at testing.
> > 
> > For any other purposes, IMHO you're massively better off using a
> > _netinst_ image instead. Or install stable and upgrade.
> 
> What Steve says is particularly true when there's a difference in major
> libc version (2.27 vs. 2.28; the latter has just migrated to testing
> right after the general block-udeb in britney was lifted).
> 
> 

Thanks for that. I have just test booting off a USB drive with
the netinst.iso image (written with dd) and it works fine.

This seems like an opportunity to improve the documentation...

When I was looking at the notes on [1] I was unsure how to
get the ISO image onto a USB stick. However that is now covered
in the manual, so perhaps a small pointer would be helpful:

  For extra convenience, these images may also be written directly
  to a USB stick.
+ The https://d-i.debian.org/manual/en.i386/apa.html;>Installation 
Howto how to do this.


One other thing might help others avoid the same mistake:
in [2] could something like this be added to the Notes section?

 * The "other images" such as netboot are only useful and safe
   when they exactly match the state of the Debian release they're
   targeting. In almost all cases that will be a _stable_ release.
   In particular, alpha and beta releases of the installer are
   likely to be unusable for more than a few days.

Apologies for the noise
Vince

[1]
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/buster_di_alpha4/amd64/iso-cd/
[2]
https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

Re: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release

[Vincent McIntyre]

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 01:18:59AM +, Steve McIntyre wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 11:00:25AM +1100, Vincent McIntyre wrote:
> >Hello
> >
> >I was trying to download the netboot image for amd64,
> >because the one I have (2018-12-06) has a segfault in libc6.
> >
> >The link on the installer team page
> >   https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
> >for the _netinst_ image points at
> >
> >https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/buster_di_alpha4/amd64/iso-cd/debian-buster-DI-alpha4-amd64-netinst.iso
> >
> >and it seems to download fine.
> >
> >When I mount the iso image, README.txt says the version is
> >Debian GNU/Linux buster-DI-alpha4 "Buster" - Official Snapshot amd64
> >NETINST 20181206-23:37
> 
> By "the iso image", you mean... ?

sorry, I mean the debian-buster-DI-alpha4-amd64-netinst.iso image
that I downloaded from the link above.

> >Question:
> >Are we sure all the images are in sync?
> >I have faith in Steve's team but thought I should ask all the same.
> >Is there a way to check the _netboot_ image is from the same
> >set of sources as the _netinst_ ?
> 
> The images team doesn't make the _netboot_ image - that comes straight
> out of the d-i build.
> 
> So... the path to the current buster netboot image also points to the
> same d-i build (20181206) that was used for the d-i alpha 4
> netinst/CD/DVD build. From my local mirror:
> 
> lrwxrwxrwx  1 mirror users8 Dec  6 19:08 current -> 20181206
> 
> But... The problem you're most likely seeing is caused by a simple
> fact. The *netboot* image ends up downloading significant chunks of
> the installer and the base system at runtime from the suite it
> targets. For buster, that is still very much a moving target and it's
> likely to already have incompatibilities with the released 20181206
> netboot image.
> 
> Netboot images are *only* useful and safe when they exactly match the
> state of the Debian release they're targeting. That's either a stable
> release, or within a couple of days of the build happening if you're
> looking at testing.
> 
> For any other purposes, IMHO you're massively better off using a
> _netinst_ image instead. Or install stable and upgrade.
> 
> Hope that helps!

It does help and I will try to set up netinst booting/install.
We usually use netboot because it's convenient and works just fine
during the course of a release.

I tried installing wth the daily installer, built on 20181216-00:11,
using the same hardware. That worked just fine, as one might expect.

Thanks again
Vince

Re: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release

[Cyril Brulebois]

Steve McIntyre  (2018-12-17):
> But... The problem you're most likely seeing is caused by a simple
> fact. The *netboot* image ends up downloading significant chunks of
> the installer and the base system at runtime from the suite it
> targets. For buster, that is still very much a moving target and it's
> likely to already have incompatibilities with the released 20181206
> netboot image.
> 
> Netboot images are *only* useful and safe when they exactly match the
> state of the Debian release they're targeting. That's either a stable
> release, or within a couple of days of the build happening if you're
> looking at testing.
> 
> For any other purposes, IMHO you're massively better off using a
> _netinst_ image instead. Or install stable and upgrade.

What Steve says is particularly true when there's a difference in major
libc version (2.27 vs. 2.28; the latter has just migrated to testing
right after the general block-udeb in britney was lifted).


Cheers,
-- 
Cyril Brulebois (k...@debian.org)
D-I release manager -- Release team member -- Freelance Consultant


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release

[Steve McIntyre]

On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 11:00:25AM +1100, Vincent McIntyre wrote:
>Hello
>
>I was trying to download the netboot image for amd64,
>because the one I have (2018-12-06) has a segfault in libc6.
>
>The link on the installer team page
>   https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
>for the _netinst_ image points at
>
>https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/buster_di_alpha4/amd64/iso-cd/debian-buster-DI-alpha4-amd64-netinst.iso
>
>and it seems to download fine.
>
>When I mount the iso image, README.txt says the version is
>Debian GNU/Linux buster-DI-alpha4 "Buster" - Official Snapshot amd64
>NETINST 20181206-23:37

By "the iso image", you mean... ?

>So the same date as the netinst image. uh-oh.
>
>The links for "other images" like netboot point at
>
>http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-amd64/current/images/
>
>which was also last updated on 2018 Dec 6th,
>acoording to boot-screens/f1.txt
>
>Question:
>Are we sure all the images are in sync?
>I have faith in Steve's team but thought I should ask all the same.
>Is there a way to check the _netboot_ image is from the same
>set of sources as the _netinst_ ?

The images team doesn't make the _netboot_ image - that comes straight
out of the d-i build.

So... the path to the current buster netboot image also points to the
same d-i build (20181206) that was used for the d-i alpha 4
netinst/CD/DVD build. From my local mirror:

lrwxrwxrwx  1 mirror users8 Dec  6 19:08 current -> 20181206

But... The problem you're most likely seeing is caused by a simple
fact. The *netboot* image ends up downloading significant chunks of
the installer and the base system at runtime from the suite it
targets. For buster, that is still very much a moving target and it's
likely to already have incompatibilities with the released 20181206
netboot image.

Netboot images are *only* useful and safe when they exactly match the
state of the Debian release they're targeting. That's either a stable
release, or within a couple of days of the build happening if you're
looking at testing.

For any other purposes, IMHO you're massively better off using a
_netinst_ image instead. Or install stable and upgrade.

Hope that helps!

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.st...@einval.com
You raise the blade, you make the change... You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane...

re: Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release

[Vincent McIntyre]

Hello

I was trying to download the netboot image for amd64,
because the one I have (2018-12-06) has a segfault in libc6.

The link on the installer team page
   https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
for the _netinst_ image points at

https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/buster_di_alpha4/amd64/iso-cd/debian-buster-DI-alpha4-amd64-netinst.iso

and it seems to download fine.

When I mount the iso image, README.txt says the version is
Debian GNU/Linux buster-DI-alpha4 "Buster" - Official Snapshot amd64
NETINST 20181206-23:37

So the same date as the netinst image. uh-oh.

The links for "other images" like netboot point at

http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-amd64/current/images/

which was also last updated on 2018 Dec 6th,
acoording to boot-screens/f1.txt

Question:
Are we sure all the images are in sync?
I have faith in Steve's team but thought I should ask all the same.
Is there a way to check the _netboot_ image is from the same
set of sources as the _netinst_ ?

FWIW the mirror I configured was ftp.au.debian.org.
I tried deb.debian.org also, which used cdn-fastly.deb.debian.org.
Both had the same result.

Assuming they are, I will try to figure out how to report the
segfault. Once I hit it, the shell stops working...

Kind regards
Vince

Debian Installer Buster Alpha 4 release

[Cyril Brulebois]

The Debian Installer team[1] is pleased to announce the fourth alpha
release of the installer for Debian 10 "Buster".


Foreword


I'd like to start by thanking Christian Perrier, who spent many years
working on Debian Installer, especially on internationalization (i18n)
and localization (l10n) topics. One might remember graphs and blog
posts on Planet Debian with statistics; keeping track of those numbers
could look like a pure mathematical topic, but having uptodate
translations is a key part of having a Debian Installer that is
accessible for most users.

Thank you so much, Christian!


Improvements in this release


 * choose-mirror:
- Set deb.debian.org as default HTTP mirror (#797340).
 * debian-archive-keyring-udeb:
- Remove wheezy keys (#901320).
- Start shipping separate keyrings for each release (#861695).
 * debian-installer:
- Bump Linux kernel ABI from 4.16.0-2 to 4.18.0-3.
- Make netboot.tar.gz archive structure for armhf identical to all
  other architectures (#902020).
- Replace ttf-freefont-udeb with fonts-freefont-udeb.
- Keep grub resolution in EFI boot, to avoid tiny fonts (#910227).
- Fix not-working F10 key function in help pages of boot screen.
 * debootstrap:
- Enable merged-/usr by default (#839046), but disable it when
  preparing a buildd chroot (#914208).
- Many other improvements/fixes, see changelog for the details.
 * fonts-thai-tlwg-udeb:
- Ship OTF fonts instead of TTF ones.
 * partman-auto-lvm:
- Add ability to limit space used within LVM VG (#515607, #904184).
 * partman-crypto:
- Set discard option on LUKS containers (#902912).
 * pkgsel:
- No longer install unattended-upgrades by default as requested
  by the Debian security team:
  https://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2018/05/msg00250.html
- Install new dependencies when safe-upgrade (default) is selected
  (#908711). In particular, this ensures the latest linux-image
  package is installed.
- Allow update-initramfs to run normally during package upgrade and
  installation (#912073).
 * preseed:
- Mark 'Checksum error' strings as translatable.


Hardware support changes


 * debian-installer:
- [armel] Disable OpenRD targets, no longer present in u-boot.
- [armhf] Remove Firefly-RK3288 image, as u-boot fails to boot due
  to #898520.
- [armhf] Add image for Sinovoip_BPI_M3.
- [arm64] Add u-boot image for pinebook.
- [mips*el/loongson-3] add input modules to netboot image (#911664).
 * flash-kernel:
- Add a machine db entry for Helios-4 NAS system (#914016).
- Add a machine db entry for the Rockchip RK3288 Tinker Board
  (#895934).
- Update Firefly-RK3399 Board (#899091).
- Add Rockchip RK3399 Evaluation Board (#899090).
- Update entry for Marvell 8040 MACCHIATOBin (#899092).
- Update Pine64+ (#899093).
- Update Raspberry Pi 3 Model B (#899096).
- Add entry for Raspberry PI 3 B+ (#905002).
- Clearfog Pro: correct DTB name (#902432).
- Add missing entries for HummingBoard variants (#905962).
- Add entries for additional Cubox-i models: SolidRun Cubox-i
  Dual/Quad (1.5som), and SolidRun Cubox-i Dual/Quad (1.5som+emmc).
 * linux:
- udeb: Add virtio_console to virtio-modules (#903122).
 * parted:
- Fix reading NVMe model names from sysfs (#911273).
 * u-boot:
- [armhf] u-boot-rockchip: Drop firefly-rk3288 target (#898520).
- [arm64] u-boot-sunxi: Enable a64-olinuxino target (#881564).
- [arm64] u-boot-sunxi: Add pinebook target.
- [armel] Drop openrd targets (no longer supported upstream).
- [armhf] u-boot-sunxi: Enable Sinovoip Banana Pi M3 (#905922).
- u-boot-imx: Remove mx6cuboxi4x4 target, as ram is now properly
  detected with mx6cuboxi.
- [armhf] u-boot-sunxi: Enable A20-OLinuXino-Lime2-eMMC (#901666).


Localization status
===

 * 76 languages are supported in this release.
   Note: English wasn't counted in previous annoncements.
 * Full translation for 25 of them. Great job by Holger Wansing, our new
   translation coordinator, and by all involved translators!


Known bugs in this release
==

 * The installer will be using the Stretch theme until the artwork
   selection for Buster has happened.
 * The nano editor advertises some buggy shortcuts (#915017).
 * There is a font issue for the Gujarati language (#911705).

See the errata[2] for details and a full list of known issues.


Feedback for this release
=

We need your help to find bugs and further improve the installer,
so please try it. Installer CDs, other media and everything else you
will need are available at our web site[3].


Thanks
==

The Debian Installer team thanks everybody who has contributed to this
release.


 1. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Team
 2.