Re: Possible to force installing from the mirror instead of the installation media?
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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