Hi!
I am a growing fan of free software, have been starting off with Debian but I
would love to now try Trisquel and see what it's like.
The reasons for having freedoms include security and privacy also (no back
doors, no binary blobs, 'free hardware' one day I hope too), so I have a lot
of incentives for going 'free', aside from autonomy!
I have a strong desire to be able to install Trisquel without connecting to
the Internet. I do not want my real IP address downloading packages and
connecting to a single server until I am running a vpn client within
Trisquel, after which I can download further packages and/or updates past
that point.
Is this possible?
So to relay what I've done so far: I've got a spare laptop, an old Dell, and
I've downloaded trisquel_7.0_amd64.iso, the main 'full' ISO from
https://trisquel.info/en/download from the looks of it.
I burnt it to a bootable USB in Debian, and all seemed to go well, when:
- First attempt - graphical installer. I get all the way to selecting
encrypted home folder option (right after partitioning and I chose encryption
with LVS), and a big crash happens. Says either CD/DVD has got problems or
HDD is old/etc. (the HDD was recently DBAN'ed and I don't think HDD is the
problem).
- Second attempt - this time, text installer. I'm fairly comfortable with
that anyway, so away I go - well, this time I'm stuck at this 'Bad archive
mirror' error, and I'm not sure how I can get past it and install the basic
OS packages without needing Internet connected.
I '', choose 'Download installer components', and it forces me to 'Choose a
mirror of the Trisquel archive' and even with 'enter information manually',
I'm taken to 'Bad archive mirror' (and I assume because of 'mirror is not
available' reason in the error).
It would be a massive shame if there's no way to install Trisquel without
compromising one's privacy on the Internet. I mean, I COULD probably work out
some complicated gateway setup where I 'Torify' or 'VPNify' the Ethernet
connection coming in to the laptop for the Install, but that's really
prohibitive (I may not have the hardware to do that anyway, my router's not
DD-WRT'able etc and I have no PC with more than one Ethernet jack to try and
make into a linux gateway, and I do NOT use Wifi so hotspot option is out),
and even make a passionate Trisquel potential like myself not to be able to
do this.
We really need an offline install option (for users with anonymity concerns
or poor Internet), even Windows and OS X can do that!
Is there a way I can work around the mirror error and continue on with
installation from the disc? Does the disc even HAVE a local repo of packages
or is the bulk of the 1.5GB taken up by the live OS on the disc? HANG ON,
what am I thinking - of course it doesn't, does it? It would need WAY more
size on the disc right?
:(
Thanks for your help...
If there's anything I can do like create my own mirror on the disk from
copying from another mirror (and make the mirror hostname /sda, or some LAN
IP like the debian PC I write this from now), or other ISOs available
somewhere, I'm all ears! I'm really pretty determined, and willing to get my
hands dirty, but not spend money buying extra hardware when one shouldn't
have to just to be able to do an offline install of a worthy OS! :)
