Debian

I've done some pre-seeding to be able to auto-install Debian on bare metal and as virtual machines. Using classes is a useful addition for conditional execution of configuration management.

What you probably ought to be doing instead is specifying the option you want via the `classes` setting (an alias for `auto-install/classes`), and then implementing the behaviour you want by setting `preseed/run` in a minimal preseed.cfg, and having a script do whatever you want in response to the classes= setting you specified. So your preseed.cfg would just be:

d-i	preseed/run	string start.sh

and your start.sh would be something like:

#!/bin/sh
. /usr/share/debconf/confmodule

db_get auto-install/classes
db_set preseed/include "${RET:-default}".cfg;;

(you might want to check that the value of $RET makes sense before using it)

Then the real configs go in `default.cfg` and `alternative.cfg` (assuming you're planning on specifying `classes=alternative`)

You may be able to get inspiration from here: https://hands.com/d-i/

although the class handling there is quite deeply buried.

Here's a simpler example of using preseed/run to do odd things to D-I, that while not involving classes, is easier to follow: https://hands.com/d-i/bug/846002/

BTW `auto-install/classes` is reserved for users (it is not used by D-I internally), so it's there specifically for you to implement whatever scheme you like.

Additional information on pre-seeding can be found at B.2. Using preseeding.

	git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git
	cd linux-stable
	git checkout v6.15.4
	cp /boot/config-$(uname -r) arch/x86/configs/my_defconfig
	make my_defconfig
	make localmodconfig
	make localyesconfig
	make -j 12
	make install

From an email list:

	git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
	cd linux
	cat /proc/config.gz > .config
	yes '' | make oldconfig
	make localmodconfig
	make savedefconfig
	cp defconfig arch/x86/configs/test_defconfig

	git bisect start v6.11 v6.6

Then iterate:

	make test_defconfig
	make
	make install

Test the newly installed kernel. Depending on the kernel having the problem or not run:

	git bisect good

or

	git bisect bad

Repeat until git identifed the problematic commit.

Note: Make sure to pick the right kernel to boot, it's not always the one with the highest version number. After a test you can remove the installed kernel at any time (and you probably want that to not run out of disk space).

I picked up an Intel Z890 chipset based Asus ProArt Z890-CREATOR WIFI motherboard. It has a relatively new Wifi card:

# lspci |grep -i wi-fi
85:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 7(802.11be) AX1775*/AX1790*/BE20*/BE401/BE1750* 2x2 (rev 1a)

With the Trixie based install, Bluetooth mice have a few problems with connecting and maintaining connection. Maybe these dmesg fail messages might point to a solution:

[    2.806746] iwlwifi 0000:85:00.0: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-gl-c0-fm-c0-93.ucode (-2)
[    2.806750] iwlwifi 0000:85:00.0: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-gl-c0-fm-c0-93.ucode (-2)
[    2.806751] iwlwifi 0000:85:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-gl-c0-fm-c0-93.ucode failed with error -2
[    2.811678] iwlwifi 0000:85:00.0: firmware: failed to load iwl-debug-yoyo.bin (-2)
[    2.811681] iwlwifi 0000:85:00.0: firmware: failed to load iwl-debug-yoyo.bin (-2)

Linux Wireless Documentation suggests an updated firmware package from linux-firmware.git, and then an installation with:

# cp iwlwifi-*.{ucode,pnvm} /lib/firmware/

The following may be required to load the firmware during boot:

# update-initramfs -u -k all

I also upgraded the kernel from 6.12.6 to 6.12.19

/debian/pool/non-free-firmware/f/firmware-nonfree has latest packaged firmware, which may not be as recent as the git repository.

I used this to attempt to load a more recent firmware, but the kernel module seems to be limiting it to v92, and v93 is not available, for some reason. I hope the 6.13.8 series kernel, when it comes out of experimental might alleviate that.

# ln -s /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-gl-c0-fm-c0-96.ucode /lib/firmware/iwlwifi-gl-c0-fm-c0-93.ucode

Intel Wireless WiFi Link, Wireless-N, Advanced-N, Ultimate-N devices - iwlwifi mentions:

You may try to switch power management scheme from balanced (default) into active by adding the following to /etc/modprobe.d/iwlmvm.conf and reboot:

options iwlmvm power_scheme=1

The following command will identify the firmware files for which a driver is looking. In this case, the driver looks for -93, but it isn't in the firmware files:

# modinfo iwlwifi |grep firmware
...
firmware:       iwlwifi-gl-c0-fm-c0.pnvm
firmware:       iwlwifi-gl-c0-fm-c0-93.ucode
...
parm:           fw_restart:restart firmware in case of error (default true) (bool)

Additional references:

• gentoo linux iwlwifi
• kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware-main.tar.gz

During the early days of Debian Linux, one could get away with a 100mb boot partition. With the explosion of included firmware files in the initramfs file, the boot directory needs to be 500mb or even 1gb in size. I have a couple older machines I have not yet rebuilt, which have limited size. I resort to copying various initrd.img files in and out as I upgrade kernels or boot into older versions of the kernel.

Sometimes I have forgotten to properly copy an image back into /boot and run update-grub. When I do that, I have to boot into grub and run the grub command line. Some commands that I run are as follows:

Set a variable so when requesting help, you can page through entries:

grub> set pager=1

List the various mount points:

grub> ls

List the files in a particular mount point

grub> ls (hd0,msdos2)/root

Startup commands, depending upon where linux and initrd files are found:

grub> set root=(hd0,msdos2)
grub> linux (hd0,msdos1)/vmlinux-6.1.0-15-amd64 root=LABEL=main
grub> initrd (hd0,msdos2)/root/initramfs/initrd.img-6.1.0-15-amd64
grub> boot

# dd if=Downloads/iso/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso of=/dev/sda bs=1M status=progress conv=fdatasync

'fdatasync' is equivalent to running 'sync' as a second command

watch kern.log to determine on which drive the USB is mounted when inserted

ensure that the USB is not auto-mounted by any other application or service

$ ucfq /etc/ssh/sshd_config
Configuration file                            Package             Exists Changed
/etc/ssh/sshd_config                          openssh-server      Yes     No

I found out the hard way that SaltStack and Debian no longer place nice together. I had upgraded a Debian installation from Bullseye to Bookworm, along with the resident Salt Minion. When attempting to use the minion, it no longer starts up, due to various imports no longer working. Which was due to the salt-minion not being upgraded. The error message would started this odyssey:

salt ImportError: cannot import name 'Markup' from 'jinja2'

Taking a look at the Debian Developer Information for Salt, the last version started in 'unstable' was 3004.1 back in December of 2022. This is now almost 8 months later and little or no movement. There was some mention in a ticket somewhere that Salt release cycles don't cater to Debian stable release cycles. Not sure if that is a legitimate reason or not, but, well, for whatever reason, SaltStack management in Debian is no longer a simple no brainer.

However, after a little digging, there is a way to run SaltStack versions 3006 (current as of this writing). It is simple to install on Bullseye, but not easily done on Bookworm.

On Bullseye (as root, or implies sudo):

# cd ~ # apt remove salt-minion salt-master # apt install curl # curl -L https://bootstrap.saltstack.com -o install_salt.sh # sh install_salt.sh -M onedir

The '-M' installs the salt master at the same time (for machines running master). If you forget to do that, you'll need to diagnose and fix the systemctl mask error with the following:

# apt install file # file /etc/systemd/system/salt-master.service # rm /etc/systemd/system/salt-master.service # systemctl daemon-reload # sh install_salt.sh -M onedir

The 'sh install_salt.sh -M onedir' should show a symlink to /dev/nul, which the 'rm ...' will fix.

On Bookworm, the bootstrap isn't scheduled to work till beginning of 2024 sometime I think with Salt 3007 or 3008 -- more info in [FEATURE REQUEST] Add Salt support for Debian 12 #64223 .

In the meantime, I had to cheat a bit:

• in /etc/debian_version, change 12.0 to 11.0
• in /etc/apt/sources.list, change bookworm to bullseye
• rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/salt.list
• run apt update
• run the commands listed above for installing the one or both the salt services
• restore /etc/debian_version and /etc/apt/sources.list to their original content

I'm sure there are more elegant ways of doing this, but this worked to fake the needed version 11 in the installation script and directory traversal requirements

Note, more info on the Salt Install/Bootstrap Process.

From a debian-boot mailing list:

A couple more options may help: it's sometimes possible that you've extracted the USB stick while files were still writing.

sudo dd \
  if=/debian-11.7.0-amd64-netinst.iso \
  of=/dev/sda \
  bs=1M oflag=dsync status=progress

This forces a sync on each write to the usb so you don't lose data and also gives you a brief status output on the size written.

• download kernel 5.17 source tar.gz file from kernel.org
• Unpack the source and apply the patch with cd linux; patch -p1 < patch_file
• Run "make localmodconfig"
• Compile (run "make")
• Install: sudo make modules_install install
• reboot and choose the new kernel in grub

# dpkg -s sc
Package: sc
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: math
Installed-Size: 440
Maintainer: Adam Majer 
Architecture: amd64
Source: sc (7.16-4)
Version: 7.16-4+b3
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.14), libncurses6 (>= 6), libtinfo6 (>= 6)
Description: Text-based spreadsheet with VI-like keybindings
 "Spreadsheet Calculator" is a much modified version of the public-
 domain spread sheet sc, which was posted to Usenet several years ago
 by Mark Weiser as vc, originally by James Gosling. It is based on
 rectangular table much like a financial spreadsheet.
 .
 Its keybindings are familiar to users of 'vi', and it has most
 features that a pure spreadsheet would, but lacks things like
 graphing and saving in foreign formats.  It's very stable and quite
 easy to use once you've put a little effort into learning it.

# lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description:    Debian GNU/Linux bullseye/sid
Release:        testing
Codename:       bullseye

When attaching an Android device to a Linux machine, you may see a popup with the message:

Unable to open MTP device "001,104"

The numbers may vary depending upon device and port:

# tail -f /var/log/kern.log
May  5 22:53:51 nuc8i7hvk01 kernel: [3205901.564694] usb 1-1: new high-speed USB device number 105 using xhci_hcd
May  5 22:53:51 nuc8i7hvk01 kernel: [3205901.714863] usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=18d1, idProduct=4ee1, bcdDevice= 2.23
May  5 22:53:51 nuc8i7hvk01 kernel: [3205901.714865] usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
May  5 22:53:51 nuc8i7hvk01 kernel: [3205901.714866] usb 1-1: Product: Nexus 6
May  5 22:53:51 nuc8i7hvk01 kernel: [3205901.714867] usb 1-1: Manufacturer: motorola
May  5 22:53:51 nuc8i7hvk01 kernel: [3205901.714868] usb 1-1: SerialNumber: ZX1G22MGK2

Further diagnostics generate:

# mtp-detect
libmtp version: 1.1.17

Listing raw device(s)
   No raw devices found.
root@nuc8i7hvk01:/home/rpb# mtp-detect
libmtp version: 1.1.17

Listing raw device(s)
Device 0 (VID=18d1 and PID=4ee1) is a Google Inc Nexus/Pixel (MTP).
   Found 1 device(s):
   Google Inc: Nexus/Pixel (MTP) (18d1:4ee1) @ bus 1, dev 103
Attempting to connect device(s)
error returned by libusb_claim_interface() = -6LIBMTP PANIC: Unable to initialize device
Unable to open raw device 0
OK.

On my system, the culprit is the gvfs filesystem packages:

# dpkg -l |grep gvfs
ii  gvfs:amd64       1.46.2-1  amd64  userspace virtual filesystem - GIO module
ii  gvfs-backends    1.46.2-1  amd64  userspace virtual filesystem - backends
ii  gvfs-common      1.46.2-1  all    userspace virtual filesystem - common data files
ii  gvfs-daemons     1.46.2-1  amd64  userspace virtual filesystem - servers
ii  gvfs-fuse        1.46.2-1  amd64  userspace virtual filesystem - fuse server
ii  gvfs-libs:amd64  1.46.2-1  amd64  userspace virtual filesystem - private libraries

# systemctl |grep gvfs
  run-user-1000-gvfs.mount   loaded active mounted   /run/user/1000/gvfs

# ps aux |grep gvfs
rpb         1886  0.0  0.0 241436  4036 ?        Ssl  Mar29   0:00 /usr/libexec/gvfsd
rpb         1891  0.0  0.0 753756  3364 ?        Sl   Mar29   0:26 /usr/libexec/gvfsd-fuse /run/user/1000/gvfs -f
rpb         2009  0.0  0.0 501008  4632 ?        Ssl  Mar29   0:00 /usr/libexec/gvfs-udisks2-volume-monitor
rpb         2041  0.0  0.0 237900  4828 ?        Ssl  Mar29   0:00 /usr/libexec/gvfs-mtp-volume-monitor
rpb         2061  0.0  0.0 239776  3052 ?        Ssl  Mar29   0:00 /usr/libexec/gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor
rpb         2069  0.0  0.0 237500  3052 ?        Ssl  Mar29   0:00 /usr/libexec/gvfs-goa-volume-monitor
rpb         2073  0.0  0.0 315992  3160 ?        Ssl  Mar29   0:41 /usr/libexec/gvfs-afc-volume-monitor
rpb         2135  0.0  0.0 391244  6824 ?        Sl   Mar29   0:02 /usr/libexec/gvfsd-trash --spawner :1.8 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/0
rpb       178920  0.0  0.0 315892  3956 ?        Sl   Mar30   0:01 /usr/libexec/gvfsd-network --spawner :1.8 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/1
rpb       178946  0.0  0.0 317528  3172 ?        Sl   Mar30   0:01 /usr/libexec/gvfsd-dnssd --spawner :1.8 /org/gtk/gvfs/exec_spaw/3
rpb       179014  0.0  0.0 206540  5372 ?        Ssl  Mar30   1:29 /usr/libexec/gvfsd-metadata

The file browser known as pcmanfs does not seem to be able to access the filesystem

Solution: Dolphin, as a substitute for Nautilus, can be used to access the virtual filesystems.

The command gio can be used to access the file system:

# gio
Usage:
  gio COMMAND [ARGS…]

Commands:
  help     Print help
  version  Print version
  cat      Concatenate files to standard output
  copy     Copy one or more files
  info     Show information about locations
  list     List the contents of locations
  mime     Get or set the handler for a mimetype
  mkdir    Create directories
  monitor  Monitor files and directories for changes
  mount    Mount or unmount the locations
  move     Move one or more files
  open     Open files with the default application
  rename   Rename a file
  remove   Delete one or more files
  save     Read from standard input and save
  set      Set a file attribute
  trash    Move files or directories to the trash
  tree     Lists the contents of locations in a tree

Use “gio help COMMAND” to get detailed help.

Background info via Wikipedia, which comes with a set of back-ends, including trash support, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, SMB, and local data via Udev integration, OBEX, MTP and others.

• Don't know why this has to be so difficult on Debian, why all the competing applications which lock each other out?
• Remember: on Android, once connected, select transfer files
• May need to open a new dolphin window to actually get at the files
• And then in Dolphin, the actual right-click/copy/paste doesn't actually work -- need to load a file and then save it.... just painful .. I hope other's experience is less painful ... maybe I have to rebuild my machine

• DebianInstaller - wiki starting point for many things installer
• Debian Installer Internals - introduction to the inner workings of the installer when it is running, its components (udebs) and its build system.
• Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide - installation instructions for the Debian GNU/Linux system for the 64-bit PC (“amd64”) architecture. It also contains pointers to more information and information on how to make the most of your new Debian system.
• Netboot Assistant - provides a tool to simplify the preparation of files for TFTP net booting
• UEFI - describe UEFI for Debian purposes: what's supported in Debian and how to use it, plus some troubleshooting tips.
• Installing Debian using network booting - describes installing a new Debian system with no CD, DVD, USB at all. By the end of the installation process, the new machine is able to run without the support of the server. During the installation, you will need a network boot server.

When in the grub prompt, these two commands provide good situational awareness:

• run the 'set' command to see what the current boot and network variables are.
• run the 'ls' command to see what devices and partitions are available

Then something like 'ls (hd0,gpt1)/boot' can show files in that partition

When running manual boot operations in the grub menu on a Dell Wyse 3040, something along the lines of the following might be used:

grub> linux (hd0,gpt2)/vmliunz root=/dev/mmcblk0p2 ro
grub> initrd (hd0,gpt2)/initrd.img
grub> boot

At Grub not loading config file or booting into linux automatically shows the trick of starting the grub menu:

grub> configfile (hd0,gpt4)/boot/grub/grub.cfg