Live-build options and such

johnraff · 2021-02-24 11:16:55

NOTE: this and some following posts moved from here.

sleekmason wrote:

I'm going for "unchecking" the entries during the install:) The lines in /etc/sources.list will still be present, but commented.

Those entries in the installer interface are for various selections of packages to install. If installing BL on top of a basic Debian system you should uncheck everything except "standard system utilities".

But commenting-out the debian repositories in apt's sources.list is a different thing altogether, and should not be done.

Thise two things are quite unconnected.

Last edited by johnraff (2021-03-03 01:10:42)

sleekmason · 2021-02-24 21:12:51

johnraff wrote:

^Those entries in the installer interface are for various selections of packages to install. If installing BL on top of a basic Debian system you should uncheck everything except "standard system utilities".
But commenting-out the debian repositories in apt's sources.list is a different thing altogether, and should not be done.
Thise two things are quite unconnected.

I do not think we are talking about the same thing at all.

I'm talking about right after the install, the next step is to install the package manager.

There are checkboxes (in mine anyway), already marked for 'security', and 'updates'. If you uncheck those, they will still be in your sources list, just uncommented.

Maybe Bunsenlabs took those options out?

johnraff · 2021-02-25 03:11:02

sleekmason wrote:

I'm talking about right after the install, the next step is to install the package manager.

I don't understand this at all. Installing apt is something that happens during, not after the normal install process, and unless you're running in "expert" mode, the only user input (unless I've forgotten something) is to confirm the location of the Debian mirror you want to use.

There are checkboxes (in mine anyway), already marked for 'security', and 'updates'. If you uncheck those, they will still be in your sources list, just uncommented.

What installer is this? I've never seen such options. The last Debian installer I tried was Bullseye Alpha3, a week or two ago:
https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-ins … 0/20201206
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/bull … 64/iso-cd/

Maybe Bunsenlabs took those options out?

Well, we do preseed the security entry in sources.list, so maybe that's why the checkboxes you mention are gone, but OTOH I don't recall seeing them in the default alpha 3 installer I ran the other day either. I'm pretty sure security was enabled, but I had to manually add 'contrib' and 'non-free' to the apt lines after install. (The BL installer does that via preseeds too.)

sleekmason · 2021-02-26 00:36:27

johnraff wrote:

sleekmason wrote:
I'm talking about right after the install, the next step is to install the package manager.
I don't understand this at all. Installing apt is something that happens during, not after the normal install process, and unless you're running in "expert" mode, the only user input (unless I've forgotten something) is to confirm the location of the Debian mirror you want to use.
There are checkboxes (in mine anyway), already marked for 'security', and 'updates'. If you uncheck those, they will still be in your sources list, just uncommented.
What installer is this? I've never seen such options. The last Debian installer I tried was Bullseye Alpha3, a week or two ago:
https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-ins … 0/20201206
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/bull … 64/iso-cd/
Maybe Bunsenlabs took those options out?
Well, we do preseed the security entry in sources.list, so maybe that's why the checkboxes you mention are gone, but OTOH I don't recall seeing them in the default alpha 3 installer I ran the other day either. I'm pretty sure security was enabled, but I had to manually add 'contrib' and 'non-free' to the apt lines after install. (The BL installer does that via preseeds too.)

-----------
Heh, Had to do an install to see for sure.

yes, this is the stable live-build + stable installer, though no differences with the installer from daily, or live-build from sid. For now, all works as expected.

The installer used was the expert gui, and the expert text installer gives the same.

(There are four separate packages as I remember, to provide the different variants.)

At first I thought it was preseeds as well, but that was only for the non-free and contrib entries added later.

So of course it is the entries in lb config for 'security' and 'updates' set to "true".

It seems like what I remember for the Bunsen Labs installer, was that these two entries were there, but the entry for 'backports' was missing in the installer, as you made it an option post install?. . . But don't get me lying.

In any event, I had thought maybe the OP had "unchecked" these entries during "Configure the package manager" during the install.

Would be interested if someone could confirm the option to uncheck 'updates' and 'security' in the Bunsenlabs installer.

Last edited by sleekmason (2021-02-26 00:43:25)

johnraff · 2021-03-01 06:58:50

sleekmason wrote:

The installer used was the expert gui, and the expert text installer gives the same.
(There are four separate packages as I remember, to provide the different variants.)
At first I thought it was preseeds as well, but that was only for the non-free and contrib entries added later.
So of course it is the entries in lb config for 'security' and 'updates' set to "true".

I don't use the expert install option so often, basically because I'm testing how our installer will work for the ordinary user, so go with the default options wherever possible. (There are indeed some interesting expert options, some of which I might want to use in my personal installs.)

The BunsenLabs installer is meant to work well out of the box for that "ordinary user" so makes some decisions ahead of time via the "preseed" file which enables some of the choices offered during the install process to be set in advance. (They can be changed post-install.) The main ones BL sets are:
*) use sudo instead of a root account
*) use https apt lines instead of http
*) add the contrib and non-free apt archive components
*) comment-out the source repo ("deb-src") apt lines
*) set the system clock to UTC time (not local time)
These are things that most BL users will want anyway, I think.

I'm right now running the BL installer on a VM in expert mode to make sure there are no clashes between our preseeded settings and what the "expert" installer offers. If all goes well, then the things we preseed should not appear in the installer options (seems to be the case so far). EDIT: ...and was the case.

The above said, I still think there might be some confusion between what's happening with repositories and package lists. Just in case...

The Debian Installer goes through these steps (among many others of course), as tested on Bullseye alpha 3 installer, expert mode, text:

"Configure the package manager"
use networkmirror
Ask to choose between http https ftp
I tried https but it fails to download anything and asks me to go back and try again. Http works normally.
use non-free?
Choose "yes" and contrib non-free are added to the apt lines in /etc/apt/sources.list
add src line?
Yes, and deb-src lines are not commented out.
add security? add release updates?
If you choose either of these then an extra line is added to the apt sources.

BUT "release updates" are not available for Debian Testing, only for Stable. I didn't test what happens if you try to enable them.

I was under the impression backports are not available for Testing (Bullseye atm) either, but the installer let me add them and post-install apt seems to be accessing the bullseye-backports repo without errors. I still doubt that there are any packages there though.

Security updates are not available for sid.

Now, in the BL installer, because the apt settings have been preseeded, none of those options come up, even in "expert" mode. That picture of "security" etc checkboxes does not appear.

All the above is about editing the repository urls and settings for apt, not about installing any specific packages, or sets of packages. That comes later:

"Select and install software"
Here you get to check or uncheck collections from a list of 9 desktop environments plus "web server", "ssh server and "standard system utilities". (If you're planning to install BL on top of this, you should choose only the last one.)

These software choices correspond to Debian "tasks" which are very similar to metapackages - they cause a whole collection of packages to be installed.

This window should not appear in the regular BL installer because it's not using apt to install a bunch of packages, it's doing a "live install" where the live system is copied as-is into the new machine, tweaking only the details needed to get it to work on that hardware.

There are further causes of confusion:
*) The BL installer is based on the Debian Installer for Buster, not Bullseye or Sid, so the later installers that @sleekmason has been using might offer options not available on Debian Buster, even the vanilla non-BL version.
*) The Debian Bullseye Installer is still alpha3 and not all the bugs have been ironed out, eg it should not break if the user chooses https for apt, and there is a confusing EFI message. There may be other subtle issues.
*) The Debian Installer that live-build sets up might be configured slightly differently from the one that Debian make available in their isos.

Last edited by johnraff (2021-03-03 01:14:40)

sleekmason · 2021-03-02 01:12:02

Thank you so much for responding johnraff.

I'm finding the live-build from sid certainly works better overall, but that is to be expected. The changelog is chock full of goodness. There are two changes I personally notice the most for live-build/sid. The first is the new replacement entries for "includes.chroot". Namely includes.chroot_after_packages, and includes.chroot_before_packages, which gives the option to place all skel files before or after the chroot package install.

So far, after our previous discussion, I've still only placed everything in "before_packages, and have had success, but live-build does now produce that single interactive install question from lightdm. (press default/enter). I imagine if I switched it to 'after_packages', the prompt wouldn't appear during the build anymore.

The second thing I'm liking a lot is that the build process doesn't seem to timeout, or fail near as often. Nothing like waiting an hour to have the net timeout, and have to start again.

That being said, it is certainly starting to make more sense for me personally, to stay with stable and just add a 'preferences' file to apt, and just grab something to look at and put back. *note to others (generally) reading this - Don't do this. Just, don't. It won't take long to mess things up if you are not careful. I keep a backup install in case something goes wrong. 10 minutes and up again.

Anyway, all of the changes we've been discussing should be in Bullseye/stable. That will be a nice change for the better.

I like your preseed defaults!

Contrib and nonfree I purposefully set to true for my uses, but it looks like I could make a couple of improvements.

Namely the deb-src lines already commented, and setting https rather than http. <- Jeez.

So, It looks like if I leave contrib and nonfree unset, there will be a question to add them during the package management portion of the install. Have to think about that further.

Apparently setting security and updates to true in config brings the screen I showed. I like having them already set to true and enabled, but wouldn't mind losing the screen, or better, just ask the backports question.

Ha! Because of the issue with Lilo not being available in testing, I couldn't get a Bullseye build yet. Did you get a build? or just mess with the installer?

Super interested in your "select and install software" option. I do not have options for "other desktop environments" Sounds like I need to enable something? (live-boot or live-config?) or is this Bunsen magic?

I am however, familiar with the "tasks" when setting up a system, makes things way easier to get started.

For the install itself, I am left with the apparent option of either a "normal" install, or a "live" install. I've always used "normal". I guess I need to see what the differences are firsthand.

@Johnraff, Thank you for your in-depth reply. Lot's of good information. In a week or two, I plan to switch back to BL for a while and try to learn a few things about how it's put together. The details fascinate me. A much larger picture has developed for me over the past few months. Awesome.

johnraff · 2021-03-02 04:59:51

sleekmason wrote:

...live-build does now produce that single interactive install question from lightdm. (press default/enter). I imagine if I switched it to 'after_packages', the prompt wouldn't appear during the build anymore.

That's new to me. I've never been asked a question by live-build once it's started running - if it hit something it didn't like, it just errored out. I always thought it was supposed to run completely unattended.

So, It looks like if I leave contrib and nonfree unset, there will be a question to add them during the package management portion of the install.

Could be. As I said, part of the confusion is that this all depends on exactly what version of DI you are running. Just try it and see is the only answer I guess...

Apparently setting security and updates to true in config brings the screen I showed.

Same comment.

Because of the issue with Lilo not being available in testing, I couldn't get a Bullseye build yet. Did you get a build? or just mess with the installer?

None of the above. I'm still looking at the BL packages for Bullseye - just thinking about applying some of the fixes that were already agreed but didn't make it into Lithium. Then discussions with the other devs about anything new we want to add or change for Beryllium (not too much I hope). I have no intention of touching live-build or the installer until they get out of the development phase and become stable. The period just before a hard freeze is the most chaotic in the Debian cycle because everyone is desperate to squeeze their last-minute fixes in. I'm just going to sit that out. Plenty of other things to do...

Super interested in your "select and install software" option. I do not have options for "other desktop environments" Sounds like I need to enable something? (live-boot or live-config?) or is this Bunsen magic?

That's not BL, it's straight Debian and has been there for some versions. I'm amazed you haven't seen it. Maybe the GUI presents it rather differently from the "text" installer (which I use more often). "Other desktop environments" was my words, not the installer's though - it just lists the tasks, but most of them are things like GNOME, MATE, LXDE... with webserver, SSH and Standard Utilities at the end.

I am however, familiar with the "tasks" when setting up a system, makes things way easier to get started.

There are various opinions about tasks, and the app tasksel, in Debianland. Some people detest them, and claim everything should be done with metapackages. (I think Gnome/Ubuntu might cause some issues with the way they use them.)

sleekmason · 2021-03-02 23:29:49

Howdy johnraff - and interested others,

I went ahead and did a build in sid again with some changes to my preseed file, and to check for the allusive additional packages/wm's screen we have been discussing.

johnraff wrote:

That's new to me. I've never been asked a question by live-build once it's started running - if it hit something it didn't like, it just errored out. I always thought it was supposed to run completely unattended.

Yeah, still trying to figure out the reason for both to exist. I suppose to supplant config files and the like before the package install.

In the stable build, using "includes.chroot", all the packages are installed first and then the skel files replace any configuration files after the chroot installation.

In the sid live-build this appears to be the equivalent to "includes.chroot_after_packages", inserting all the files at the same point in the process as the stable live-build.

So, I changed over all skel files to "includes.chroot_after_packages" to double check, and the behavior indeed matches the stable live-build. I no longer had the interactive question and the build completed with success.

That's not BL, it's straight Debian and has been there for some versions. I'm amazed you haven't seen it. Maybe the GUI presents it rather differently from the "text" installer (which I use more often). "Other desktop environments" was my words, not the installer's though - it just lists the tasks, but most of them are things like GNOME, MATE, LXDE... with webserver, SSH and Standard Utilities at the end.

Seems this has to be an option applied somewhere in the configuration. (lb-config? some task for the installer?)

Here is the only possible relevant screen in any edition I use, stable or sid. And pretty sure this is not at all the screen you are talking about.
(*note, for Pete's sake, I have BL on a stick. . . I'll look when finished here.) (see below).

Anyhow, I haven't made any deletions or additions to live-build other than the common ones you would expect.

Thought you might get a kick out of this. This is the dark expert text installer in sid coming down the pike, not mine.

The options continue further down on the list to offer Squash and the like, but nothing resembling what we are talking about. I have seen nothing that offers the options for desktops and the like in either the stable or sid installer.

---
On the Live install vs. the Normal install, I noticed zero differences in the end product. The installs go well either way. Basically from what I gather, "live" copies the image itself, while "normal" installs and sets up the system from packages on the local media.

I suppose changing the "live.list.chroot" to add/remove programs could affect which option should be chosen?

The manual gives this.

"Normal" Debian Installer: This is a normal live system image with a separate kernel and initrd which (when selected from the appropriate bootloader) launches into a standard Debian Installer instance, just as if you had downloaded a CD image of Debian and booted it. Images containing a live system and such an otherwise independent installer are often referred to as "combined images".
628
On such images, Debian is installed by fetching and installing .deb packages using debootstrap, from local media or some network-based network, resulting in a default Debian system being installed to the hard disk.
629
This whole process can be preseeded and customized in a number of ways; see the relevant pages in the Debian Installer manual for more information. Once you have a working preseeding file, live-build can automatically put it in the image and enable it for you.
630
"Live" Debian Installer: This is a live system image with a separate kernel and initrd which (when selected from the appropriate bootloader) launches into an instance of the Debian Installer.
631
Installation will proceed in an identical fashion to the "normal" installation described above, but at the actual package installation stage, instead of using debootstrap to fetch and install packages, the live filesystem image is copied to the target. This is achieved with a special udeb called live-installer.
632
After this stage, the Debian Installer continues as normal, installing and configuring items such as bootloaders and local users, etc.

Edit*
I just installed Bunsen labs from the iso off of usb, and found no options that you speak of concerning desktop environments, unless maybe checking one of the boxes in my screenshot above activates the option?

Ah! I think I may have figured out our confusion . . Are you talking about one of the Debian install cd's?

johnraff wrote:

"Select and install software"
Here you get to check or uncheck collections from a list of 9 desktop environments plus "web server", "ssh server and "standard system utilities". (If you're planning to install BL on top of this, you should choose only the last one.)

This would certainly be a cool feature to have.)

Last edited by sleekmason (2021-03-03 00:48:46)

johnraff · 2021-03-03 01:52:43

sleekmason wrote:

johnraff wrote:
(the "select and install software" option) That's not BL, it's straight Debian and has been there for some versions. I'm amazed you haven't seen it. Maybe the GUI presents it rather differently from the "text" installer (which I use more often). "Other desktop environments" was my words, not the installer's though - it just lists the tasks, but most of them are things like GNOME, MATE, LXDE... with webserver, SSH and Standard Utilities at the end.
Here is the only possible relevant screen in any edition I use, stable or sid. And pretty sure this is not at all the screen you are talking about.
https://i.postimg.cc/njL1N7jV/Dark-text-expert-installer.jpg
The options continue further down on the list to offer Squash and the like, but nothing resembling what we are talking about. I have seen nothing that offers the options for desktops and the like in either the stable or sid installer.

Right, that's a quite different, earlier stage in the installer, talking about possible extra installer components, not things for the installed system.

I just installed Bunsen labs from the iso off of usb, and found no options that you speak of concerning desktop environments, unless maybe checking one of the boxes in my screenshot above activates the option?
Ah! I think I may have figured out our confusion . . Are you talking about one of the Debian install cd's?
johnraff wrote:
"Select and install software"
Here you get to check or uncheck collections from a list of 9 desktop environments plus "web server", "ssh server and "standard system utilities". (If you're planning to install BL on top of this, you should choose only the last one.)

Exactly. Because BL does a live install, D-I skips the main package install stage so selecting packages to install doesn't come into it. That's a window that appears when running a normal Debian install iso.

This would certainly be a cool feature to have.)

Not on a BL iso though. Adding a GNOME DE is the last thing people would want to do!

On the Live install vs. the Normal install, I noticed zero differences in the end product. The installs go well either way. Basically from what I gather, "live" copies the image itself, while "normal" installs and sets up the system from packages on the local media.

Yes, that's it, and in the case of a "netinstall" iso (what I usually use) it downloads the packages to install. The "live" install usually goes much faster, with messages like "copying files...", while the "normal" install will be going to the Debian repos, downloading and installing packages the regular way - unless you've packed them in the iso, which would make it quite a bit bigger.

I suppose changing the "live.list.chroot" to add/remove programs could affect which option should be chosen?

That's the package list for the live system. I've never built a "normal" install iso, but if I remember right, the "normal" install package list follows that too. But whether to then do a live or normal install is set in a line in auto/config:

--debian-installer live

NB (yet) another source of confusion - the Debian Installer in expert mode offers to do a "live" install at some point. That's quite a different thing, and seems to be about putting a live system on the hard disk (probably in a separate small partition) so that every time you run it it's a new system, non-persistent presumably. I'd like to try that out some day - it might possibly be useful for things like internet banking, or fixing your regular system when grub or fstab is broken...

#21 2021-02-24 11:16:55

Re: Live-build options and such

#22 2021-02-24 21:12:51

Re: Live-build options and such

#23 2021-02-25 03:11:02

Re: Live-build options and such

#24 2021-02-26 00:36:27

Re: Live-build options and such

#25 2021-03-01 06:58:50

Re: Live-build options and such

#26 2021-03-02 01:12:02

Re: Live-build options and such

#27 2021-03-02 04:59:51

Re: Live-build options and such

#28 2021-03-02 23:29:49

Re: Live-build options and such

#29 2021-03-03 01:52:43

Re: Live-build options and such

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