Updated installation images for Debian Ports 2023-06-06

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hello!

I have created updated installation images for Debian Ports.

These can be found here:

- https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2023-06-06/

I have already successfully tested the sparc64 installer.

Adrian

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hi Carlos!

Thanks for the work with the new snapshosts! Is there any update to the
Debian Installer images for Amiga? hd-media doesn't have the kernel modules
needed to mount Amiga hard disks and AFFS/FAT/EXT filesystems, while nativehd
is not detecting my NE2000 compatible PCMCIA cards via APNE driver (I know I
still have a patch to try for them).

Right, this completely fell of the table. I will try to prepare the changes for
the upcoming weekend. However, due to the current freeze for Debian Bookworm, I
cannot commit anything.

Laurent Vivier has also prepared some improvements for qemu-virt which we had to
shelf until after the Bookworm release.

Adrian

[Michael Schmitz]

Hi Carlos,

Sent: Wednesday, June 7, 2023 9:30
Subject: Re: Updated installation images for Debian Ports 2023-06-06
Hi Adrian,

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
Right, this completely fell of the table. I will try to prepare the changes for
the upcoming weekend. However, due to the current freeze for Debian Bookworm, I
cannot commit anything.

Even so, it shouldn't be hard to generate an initrd image that matches the kernel in the snapshot... or maybe I am wrong? I remember trying and having trouble getting compiled a new Linux/m68k kernel with a reasonable size for the Amiga (actually, the size of the snapshots).

update-initramfs -u -k <kernel-version> should do that (if the missing
modules are included in the modules package for your kernel).

Add the missing modules to /etc/initramfs-tools/modules in case they are
not added with the default configuration.

You'll need to run that on another m68k system perhaps (update-initramfs
and mkinitramfs are both shell scripts, but I doubt this will work on a
different system).

Cheers,

Michael

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
Laurent Vivier has also prepared some improvements for qemu-virt which we had to
shelf until after the Bookworm release.

Would that mean that qemu can be used instead of MiNT?
Regards,
Carlos
Carlos Milán Figueredo | HispaMSX System Operator | http://www.hispamsx.org | telnet://bbs.hispamsx.org | https://calnus.com

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hello Michael!

Post by Michael Schmitz
Hi Carlos,

Sent: Wednesday, June 7, 2023 9:30
Subject: Re: Updated installation images for Debian Ports 2023-06-06
Hi Adrian,

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
Right, this completely fell of the table. I will try to prepare the changes for
the upcoming weekend. However, due to the current freeze for Debian Bookworm, I
cannot commit anything.

Even so, it shouldn't be hard to generate an initrd image that matches the kernel in the snapshot... or maybe I am wrong? I remember trying and having trouble getting compiled a new Linux/m68k kernel with a reasonable size for the Amiga (actually, the size of the snapshots).

update-initramfs -u -k <kernel-version> should do that (if the missing modules are included in the modules package for your kernel).

We’re talking about an initrd that includes debian-installer. You cannot build these that way. You have to build the debian-installer package.

Adrian

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hello Michael!

AFAIR update-initramfs -u only replaces the /lib/modules directory
structure in an existing initramfs image, and leaves the rest of the
files unchanged. But I admit I haven't tried that on installer images...
If that fails, manually unpacking the image and repacking using cpio
after replacing modules (or adding any) could be another option. That
should work (though I'm not sure whether module dependencies generated
on a non-m68k system will work).
Modules that debian-installer does not know about would have to be
loaded manually from a shell (if that is still supported).
What am I missing here?

This isn't about the initrd missing one or two files, it's about the initrd
and the kernel completely mismatched to what's on the archive mirrors.

As I have explained in my other mail, the problem is that when you build a
d-i image using a certain kernel from the archives, it stops working the
moment this kernel is no longer in Debian unstable.

The reason for this problem is that the network installer (not to be confused
with the NETINST CD image), loads additional kernel modules from the mirror
unlike the NETINST CD image which ships all these files on the CD.

The network installer can only ever work properly when used with a static
archive mirror that you find in stable or partially testing distributions.

Adrian

[Michael Schmitz]

Hi Adrian,

AFAIR update-initramfs -u only replaces the /lib/modules directory
structure in an existing initramfs image, and leaves the rest of the
files unchanged. But I admit I haven't tried that on installer images...

If that fails, manually unpacking the image and repacking using cpio
after replacing modules (or adding any) could be another option. That
should work (though I'm not sure whether module dependencies generated
on a non-m68k system will work).

Modules that debian-installer does not know about would have to be
loaded manually from a shell (if that is still supported).

What am I missing here?

Cheers,

Michael

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
Hello Michael!

Post by Michael Schmitz
Hi Carlos,

Sent: Wednesday, June 7, 2023 9:30
Subject: Re: Updated installation images for Debian Ports 2023-06-06
Hi Adrian,

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
Right, this completely fell of the table. I will try to prepare the changes for
the upcoming weekend. However, due to the current freeze for Debian Bookworm, I
cannot commit anything.

Even so, it shouldn't be hard to generate an initrd image that matches the kernel in the snapshot... or maybe I am wrong? I remember trying and having trouble getting compiled a new Linux/m68k kernel with a reasonable size for the Amiga (actually, the size of the snapshots).

update-initramfs -u -k <kernel-version> should do that (if the missing modules are included in the modules package for your kernel).

We’re talking about an initrd that includes debian-installer. You cannot build these that way. You have to build the debian-installer package.
Adrian

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hi Carlos!

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz

Thanks for the work with the new snapshosts! Is there any update to the
Debian Installer images for Amiga? hd-media doesn't have the kernel modules
needed to mount Amiga hard disks and AFFS/FAT/EXT filesystems, while nativehd
is not detecting my NE2000 compatible PCMCIA cards via APNE driver (I know I
still have a patch to try for them).

Right, this completely fell of the table. I will try to prepare the changes for
the upcoming weekend. However, due to the current freeze for Debian Bookworm, I
cannot commit anything.
Laurent Vivier has also prepared some improvements for qemu-virt which we had to
shelf until after the Bookworm release.

Just as a heads-up: I am working on this now.

First step is to add the -virt flavor.

Adrian

[Alex Perez]

What's new with the actual contents of the image?

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
Hello!
I have created updated installation images for Debian Ports.
- https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/2023-06-06/
I have already successfully tested the sparc64 installer.
Adrian

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Hello!

Post by Alex Perez
What's new with the actual contents of the image?

They have been updated to the latest version of Debian unstable
which is currently identical to Debian Bookworm, i.e.:

- kernel 6.1.x
- gcc-12 as default compiler
- updated debian-installer component
- updated core packages
- updated archive GPG keyring

Post by Alex Perez
https://wiki.debian.org/NewInBookworm

Adrian

[John Paul Adrian Glaubitz]

Sent: Wednesday, June 7, 2023 9:30
Subject: Re: Updated installation images for Debian Ports 2023-06-06
Hi Adrian,

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
Right, this completely fell of the table. I will try to prepare the changes for
the upcoming weekend. However, due to the current freeze for Debian Bookworm, I
cannot commit anything.

Even so, it shouldn't be hard to generate an initrd image that matches the kernel in the snapshot... or maybe I am wrong? I remember trying and having trouble getting compiled a new Linux/m68k kernel with a reasonable size for the Amiga (actually, the size of the snapshots).

The problem here is that the network installer relies on the kernel packages on the mirror which is not static for unstable.

If you have a network installer with a 6.1 kernel, it stops working the moment the kernel in unstable is updated to 6.2.

The network installer can only really work with a static mirror like you have it for testing or stable.

Post by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz
Laurent Vivier has also prepared some improvements for qemu-virt which we had to
shelf until after the Bookworm release.

Would that mean that qemu can be used instead of MiNT?

You can already install Debian/m68k on QEMU. The virt flavor is just a custom virtual machine which provides more CPU power and RAM. It doesn’t emulate a real m68k machine.

Adrian