Comment 0 for bug 1085336

1) The release of Ubuntu you are using, via 'lsb_release -rd' or System -> About Ubuntu: lubuntu-12.10-alternate-x86_64
2) The version of the package you are using, via 'apt-cache policy pkgname' or by checking in Software Center: ditto
3) What you expected to happen: the same Iso can be used to carry out a successful desktop install via both a CD based install and a PXE based network install.
4) What happened instead: CD based install gets a fully working graphical login UI. PXE network based install just gets a text login.

More details

The lubuntu-12.10-alternate-x86_64.iso can be burned to a CD and a full working desktop install can be carried out without even network access. Nevertheless, an attempt to use the same iso for a hands-off PXE network install fails to install a full desktop. Instead, a text login screen is the end result. dpkg --get-selections |grep lubuntu-desktop shows it's not installed. The syslog in /var/log/installer doesn't show anything either.

I have investigated into the reason why this is so, and come to believe that the problem starts from the Release and Release.gpg

0cfdb62cb16d4689ae9751b5facdbfb0 1458494 main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz
[...]
 4b68123b7db572691d627fa22bb26093 58067 main/debian-installer/binary-amd64/Packages.gz
[...]
 9493d858da4aa8fe9e371e8e1d2d8861 6792450 universe/binary-amd64/Packages.gz
[...]
 8fdf433e91b496638b4a999dfb2c5c51 18510 universe/debian-installer/binary-amd64/Packages.gz

See the above differences in both md5 checksums and sizes?

The differences carry over to the Release and Packages.gz in the dists/universe subdirectory:

[root@cobbler universe]# pwd
/mnt/dists/quantal/universe
[root@cobbler universe]# ls -lR
.:
total 8
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 binary-amd64
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 binary-i386
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:25 debian-installer
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:25 source

./binary-amd64:
total 48
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 48538 Oct 17 00:26 Packages.gz
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 101 Oct 17 00:26 Release

./binary-i386:
total 1
-r--r--r-- 8 root root 20 Oct 17 00:26 Packages.gz
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 100 Oct 17 00:26 Release

./debian-installer:
total 2
dr-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2048 Oct 17 00:26 binary-amd64

./debian-installer/binary-amd64:
total 1
-r--r--r-- 8 root root 20 Oct 17 00:26 Packages.gz

./source:
total 0

The lubuntu-desktop meta package is in the universe/l/

The package is there:

[root@cobbler lubuntu-meta]# ls -l
total 6
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 3278 Oct 4 04:33 lubuntu-core_0.45_amd64.deb
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 2098 Oct 4 04:33 lubuntu-desktop_0.45_amd64.deb

It would be great if the iso is created in such a way that it doesn't discriminate PXE network based installs. In fact, in a school setting, where a large number of computers need to be setup hands-off, providing an iso that is full PXE-capable should increase the adoption of lubuntu.

Regards,

-- Zack