Comment 2 for bug 1582508

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C Michal (michal-physics) wrote :

I doubt this is exactly the right place for this discussion, but I have some information to add.

I've been chasing down some issues with installing from respin iso's.

1) First is a permissions bug I don't understand. When the ubiquity installer runs, it uses pkexec to get root permissions, and then it seems to drop and regain root priviliges as it needs them. When run from a respin iso though, this somehow gets messed up and the install fails. A workaround is to run the live session on the iso, then in a terminal: "sudo ubiquity"

2) From there things nearly go ok, except that you then hit:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/658865
There are a couple of things you could do to workaround this.
a) copy the dists directory from the official ubuntu (mate in my case) install iso into the respin iso. (you break respin process into two separate pieces, eg: "respin backup cdfs" then "respin backup iso", you can fiddle with the filesystem in between, before the iso is generated). So after generating the cdfs, navigate to /home/respin/respin/ISOTMP. and copy the dists directory from an official install iso in here.

Another option to deal with this is, after booting into the live session, but before starting ubiquity, you can: sudo rm /usr/lib/ubiquity/apt-setup/generators/40cdrom

3) A somewhat separate, but related issue. If you want to be able to use unetbootin to convert your respin iso into a usb flash drive that is bootable and installable, there are a couple more things to do:
  A) use the ubuntu startup disk creator to create a usb flash drive. From the flash drive copy the boot and EFI directories from it. You'll want to add these into your ISOTMP as well, but you need to edit boot/grub/grub.cfg. In that grub.cfg change (i) the file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntuXXX.seed to custom.seed (the ubuntuXXX.seed differs depending on the flavour) (ii) the filename of the initrd to /casper/initrd.gz, and (iii) the kernel name to /casper/vmlinuz

  B) cp /usr/lib/syslinux/modules/bios/menu.c32 /home/respin/respin/ISOTMP/isolinux/

With those last few steps done, you can use unetbootin to convert your iso to a live flash drive that will boot in BIOS or UEFI (secure boot works!), and then as long as you start the installer with "sudo ubiquity" it works.