The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

Horizon_Brave · 2016-04-11 22:58:24

Hey everyone,

So my question is sort of two fold, and I hope I'm not asking anything that is obvious, but it just left me scratching my head... I've searched around, especially looking at Head_on_a_Stick's Guide to converting BL to UEFI

But nothing seems to answer the questions..which are...

1. Are we using the same installer as Debian proper? If we are...then why are we never prompted during the install process when going through the partitioning portion, to be able to select other partition tables?
I haven't yet tried it with a proper debian install myself, but from watching a few videos of people running through the debian install, that they are always given the option of this screen:

Does anyone else get the option of choosing a partition layout other than MBR (ms-dos label in fdisk). I've gone through the install multiple times, and I've never been able to choose another partitioning scheme.

I get that I'm installing to a Virtual Machine, but that shouldn't matter right? Or is this one of those cases that the installer will detect the hardware, and only present "relevent" options?

tknomanzr · 2016-04-12 04:04:00

We are using the Debian installer, though likely an older version of it. gpt would be the partitioning scheme you would want for the boot partition for an efi installation.

hhh · 2016-04-12 04:22:14

tknomanzr wrote:

We are using the Debian installer, though likely an older version of it.

We're using the jessie version of the d-i in "live" mode. I've never installed Debian from the standard discs, it's quite possible the standard installer behaves differently.

jessie "Live" installation does not support EFI, but stretch's will.

We customize the installer that the "official" Debian Live ISOs use by automatically setting up no root user, source URLs and system clock settings, plus our installer custom colors, boot graphic and header graphic. No changes have been made to the partitioning section.

-edit- I've installed the standard netiso many times, I can't remember the partitioning section being any different.

Horizon_Brave · 2016-04-12 05:17:35

hhh wrote:

tknomanzr wrote:
We are using the Debian installer, though likely an older version of it.
jessie "Live" installation does not support EFI, but stretch's will.
-edit- I've installed the standard netiso many times, I can't remember the partitioning section being any different.

Wow, okay, so Debian even have different versions of it's installer depending on it's stable and testing releases. and the Stable live release won't support the option of varying partition schemes is what you're saying?

Boy when they give the name Stable to something..they really realy mean it!

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-04-12 06:46:39

Horizon_Brave wrote:

I've never been able to choose another partitioning scheme.

Partition the device beforehand, you can use gdisk &co. on raw disk images if you're using a VM
EDIT: the jessie version of gdisk is a beta (ironically) so use gparted instead:

sudo gparted /full/path/to/disk.img

I have always found the Debian installer's partitioning section to be confusing and I prefer to prepare the target drive before running any installers.

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2016-04-12 06:49:42)

tknomanzr · 2016-04-12 06:53:27

To be fair, what a debian netinstall would do for you that a live iso would not would be to detect that you setup a gpt partition and setup the grub efi stuff for you. It's all automagical when using the debian netinst isos. Since Live Build did not support efi setups at the time BL was first released to the public, @HoaS posted a way to manually convert it later on. My preferred route has been to set it all up via a debian netinstall then use @johraff's install script to install BunsenLabs later.

Horizon_Brave · 2016-04-12 06:58:40

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Horizon_Brave wrote:
I've never been able to choose another partitioning scheme.
Partition the device beforehand, you can use gdisk &co. on raw disk images if you're using a VM
EDIT: the jessie version of gdisk is a beta (ironically) so use gparted instead:
sudo gparted /full/path/to/disk.img
I have always found the Debian installer's partitioning section to be confusing and I prefer to prepare the target drive before running any installers.

Thanks for the reply HoaS and everyone else. I may have phrased this whole thing poorly. I really wasn't looking to find out how to do this.. I know that 'prepping' the disk using a tool, before you go through the install process works. I was just curious as to *why* Debian doesn't give you the option to do this very thing on the install procedure. And why it defaults to using the MBR scheme.

So just to confirm, it's because we're using the Stable Live version of the d-i...if I were to download Stretch's installer, it most likely would allow me to choose the partitioning scheme?

Horizon_Brave · 2016-04-12 07:00:43

tknomanzr wrote:

To be fair, what a debian netinstall would do for you that a live iso would not would be to detect that you setup a gpt partition and setup the grub efi stuff for you. It's all automagical when using the debian netinst isos. Since Live Build did not support efi setups at the time BL was first released to the public, @HoaS posted a way to manually convert it later on. My preferred route has been to set it all up via a debian netinstall then use @johraff's install script to install BunsenLabs later.

Ah! That makes sense. Sorry you beat me to my reply above. Thanks tknomanzr....I think I was confusing the live install with the netinstall...

Head_on_a_Stick · 2016-04-12 07:20:29

Of course, there are other ways to install Debian:
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/ … 03.html.en

Horizon_Brave · 2016-04-12 17:57:05

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Of course, there are other ways to install Debian:
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/ … 03.html.en

ha, wow, very...."hands on" to put it one way... Thanks for the explanation guys. Like I said, I was actually unclear on the meaning of the live build vs a netinstall, and the regular "big" install etc..

#1 2016-04-11 22:58:24

The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

#2 2016-04-12 04:04:00

Re: The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

#3 2016-04-12 04:22:14

Re: The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

#4 2016-04-12 05:17:35

Re: The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

#5 2016-04-12 06:46:39

Re: The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

#6 2016-04-12 06:53:27

Re: The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

#7 2016-04-12 06:58:40

Re: The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

#8 2016-04-12 07:00:43

Re: The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

#9 2016-04-12 07:20:29

Re: The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

#10 2016-04-12 17:57:05

Re: The Debian Installer vs. The Bunsen Installer

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