Comment 25 for bug 1012629

Hi Dave,

I've been working with Canonical on this issue since I posted all of my information.

I have the following as part of my preseed:

d-i partman/early_command string \
USBDEV=$(list-devices usb-partition | sed "s/\(.*\)./\1/");\
BOOTDEV=$(list-devices disk | grep -v "$USBDEV" | head -1);\
debconf-set partman-auto/disk $BOOTDEV;\
debconf-set grub-installer/bootdev $BOOTDEV;

During installation, this becomes:

Jun 19 12:31:20 debconf: --> SET partman-auto/disk /dev/sdb
Jun 19 12:31:20 debconf: <-- 0 value set
Jun 19 12:31:20 debconf: --> SET grub-installer/bootdev /dev/sdb

(which is right) but still I get this:

Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> SETTITLE debian-installer/grub-installer/title
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: <-- 0 OK
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> GET grub-installer/bootdev
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: <-- 0 /dev/sdb
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> GET cdrom-detect/hybrid
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: <-- 10 cdrom-detect/hybrid doesn't exist
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> PROGRESS STEP 1
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: <-- 0 OK
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> PROGRESS INFO grub-installer/progress/step_bootdev
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: <-- 0 OK
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> FGET grub-installer/bootdev seen
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: <-- 0 false
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> INPUT high grub-installer/only_debian
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: <-- 30 question skipped
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> GO
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: <-- 0 ok
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> GET grub-installer/only_debian
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: <-- 0 true
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> PROGRESS STEP 1
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: <-- 0 OK
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: --> SUBST grub-installer/progress/step_install_loader BOOTDEV /dev/sda
Jun 19 12:45:03 debconf: Adding [BOOTDEV] -> [/dev/sda]

which is wrong. I asked for sdb :-)

The only workaround so far seems to be to have:

d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean false

which then pops up a question if I really want it on sdb, which I can confirm. This, however, sorta defeats the purpose of a fully-automated installation with users who don't know what sdb is :-)

How can I ensure that there's a valid partition table on /dev/sdb in a fully-automated install? I'm doing this for partitioning:

d-i partman-lvm/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true
d-i partman-lvm/device_remove_lvm boolean true
d-i partman-md/device_remove_md boolean true
d-i partman-auto/method string crypto
d-i partman-auto-lvm/new_vg_name string somename
d-i partman-auto-lvm/guided_size string max
d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true
d-i partman-partitioning/confirm_write_new_label boolean true
d-i partman/choose_partition select finish
d-i partman/confirm boolean true
d-i partman/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true
d-i partman-auto/expert_recipe string \
(recipe deleted)
d-i partman/default_filesystem string ext4

Can I add something to ensure that the partition table is there?

Thanks.

David