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Bug#1031696: marked as done (Use of symbolic links in non-free ISO images breaks file system transposition support)

Your message dated Sun, 30 Apr 2023 16:33:52 +0000
with message-id <E1pt9zk-006Piw-TY@fasolo.debian.org>
and subject line Bug#1031696: fixed in debian-cd 3.2.1
has caused the Debian Bug report #1031696,
regarding Use of symbolic links in non-free ISO images breaks file system transposition support
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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-- 
1031696: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1031696
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: non-free
Version: firmware-11.6.0
Not sure if this is something that should be sent to the official bug tracker, since it's an issue with cdimage/unofficial/non-free, but I would like to report that the current cd-including-firmware images, such as 'firmware-11.6.0-amd64-netinst.iso' have a major issue in that, unlike what is the case for the official Debian installation ISOs, such as 'debian-11.6.0-amd64-netinst.iso', they do not support UEFI file system transposition.
As a reminder, file system transposition means the ability to take the content of a UEFI bootable media and copy it, at the file system level, to a partition that was independently created and formatted by the user, while preserving the ability of the resulting media to still boot in UEFI mode (thus leveraging the cornerstone of UEFI, as opposed to BIOS, which is the ability to create boot media by copying content at the file system level rather than at the block level).
In short, the expectation of many UEFI users -- and I have to commend Debian for having done a stellar job over the past few years to ensure that this is properly supported with official ISOs through, for instance, switching boot media detection to detecting the presence of a specific file rather than looking for a specific partition label or UUID -- is that they should be able to a USB media to FAT32 and then extract the full content from the Debian ISO there, to end up with a media that they can use to both boot and install Debian.
This method has the advantage of not relying on a specific utility to be able to create the media (noting that even something as basic as 'dd' is for instance not available on Windows platforms) to instead rely entirely on the native tools provided by their OS, and that have the advantage of usually coming with a GUI that users might also be more comfortable with.
Now, the problem is that, when using file system transposition, one cannot rely on symbolic links (such as the ones used by Rock Ridge on top of an ISO9660 file system) to be preserved during ISO file extraction, as, for instance, FAT32 has no support for them whereas it is the file system most people are likely to use for UEFI file system transposition.
Yet, the current '/firmware/' structure of 'debian-11.6.0-amd64-netinst.iso' is such that a file like: 
 '/firmware/amd64-microcode_3.20191218.1_amd64.deb'
is actually a symbolic link to:

'../pool/non-free/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-amd-graphics_20210315-3_all.deb'
So this means that during file system transposition to FAT32, '/firmware/amd64-microcode_3.20191218.1_amd64.deb' will either be lost or contain invalid content, and the Debian installer, which is designed to look into /firmware/... to look for packages, will be unable to locate the firmware files that the people who chose to use 'firmware-11.6.0-amd64-netinst.iso' want it to be able to locate.
In short, whereas symbolic links are fine for non-critical things like documentation, they should not be used for files that need to be located by the debian installer, because doing so breaks file system transposition support.
As such, we *strongly* recommend, for the sake of making the Debian ISOs work for everyone (rather than only those who will copy the image through dd, which is a subset of users), that, instead of having '/firmware/xyz.deb' symbolic links pointing to '../pool/non-free/x/xyz.deb', the reverse should be used, on account that '/firmware/' is the directory where Debian-installer will be trying to locate the firmware packages and therefore the physical files should always reside there.
Or, even better, Debian should look into symbolic links altogether, as they can not be relied on and are a source of trouble. 

Regards,

/Pete

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Source: debian-cd
Source-Version: 3.2.1
Done: Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org>

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
debian-cd, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive.

A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 1031696@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org> (supplier of updated debian-cd package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@ftp-master.debian.org)


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Format: 1.8
Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2023 18:11:17 +0200
Source: debian-cd
Architecture: source
Version: 3.2.1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: medium
Maintainer: Debian CD Group <debian-cd@lists.debian.org>
Changed-By: Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org>
Closes: 1031696
Changes:
 debian-cd (3.2.1) unstable; urgency=medium
 .
   [ James Addison ]
   * firmware: use hard links rather than symlinks. Closes: #1031696
 .
   [ Steve McIntyre ]
   * Kill loadlin, nobody has DOS any more. Also Stop copying the
     /tools directory from the mirror, as that's all that's left there
     now.
 .
   [ Cyril Brulebois ]
   * tools/generate_di+k_list: Add zstd alongside initramfs-tools and
     busybox, since it's now getting installed by base-installer (starting
     with 1.212).
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