Debian base system iso fails to find a CD-ROM

[Eugene V. Lyubimkin]

Hello Geza,

Today I was surprisingly failed to install Debian from netinstall image, written by UNetbootin to my USB Flash drive. The install process failed with installer's complaints 'failed to find a CD-ROM', though all actions before went smoothly. I was able to install Debian only by manual writing boot.img to USB Flash and then copying .iso-file.

I was able to find similar fail-reports in the internet about problems with Debian netinstall.

[Geza Kovacs (gezakovacs)]

This is strange indeed... could you tell me which was the exact file you used (mini.iso, netboot.tar.gz), whether it was the gtk version or not, and whether it was with etch, lenny, squeeze, or sid? I haven't changed anything with the Debian install option in recent revisions, so I would presume it might be some recent upstream change to the initrd.

[Eugene V. Lyubimkin (jackyf-devel)]

Geza Kovacs wrote:
> This is strange indeed... could you tell me which was the exact file you
> used (mini.iso, netboot.tar.gz), whether it was the gtk version or not,
> and whether it was with etch, lenny, squeeze, or sid? I haven't changed
> anything with the Debian install option in recent revisions, so I would
> presume it might be some recent upstream change to the initrd.
>
It was Etch netinstall.iso, amd64, and it was qt4 version of unetbootin.
USB Flash was processed by using 'custom image' checked in unetbootin
menu. If you have an ability, please try reproducing this on your computer.

--
Eugene V. Lyubimkin aka JackYF, JID: jackyf.devel(maildog)gmail.com
C++/Perl developer, Debian Maintainer

[Geza Kovacs (gezakovacs)]

I'm having difficulty reproducing this on my computer. I tried ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/etch/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/mini.iso (since there's no "netinstall.iso" I presume you were referring to "mini.iso"), and also tried with the mini.iso i386 versions and the gtk (as in Debian-installer gtk version), as well as the Netinstall options that were built-in for UNetbootin, and don't encounter a "failed to find a CD-ROM" error with any of them (it gets past the ftp mirror selection screen and I abort the installation once it gets to the partitioner, though I presume that the CD checking error you encountered would occur prior to the partitioning screen).

I'm thinking that your computer might not be able to access the FTP server and is thus falling back to checking for a CD-rom, or that you perhaps accidentally downloaded some iso file other than the mini.iso file or that the iso file was corrupted. Could you try re-downloading the mini.iso, or using UNetbootin's built-in Netinstall option, and boot it on a computer that you're sure has network access with Etch, and see if you still get the error?

[Eugene V. Lyubimkin (jackyf-devel)]

Geza Kovacs wrote:
> I'm having difficulty reproducing this on my computer. I tried
> ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/etch/main/installer-
> amd64/current/images/netboot/mini.iso (since there's no "netinstall.iso"
No, it's a netboot image, and I am speaking about the base system iso
(~120-180 MiB). What are you need is
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.0/amd64/iso-cd/debian-500-amd64-netinst.iso.
Sorry, maybe I didn't clarified this enough.

--
Eugene V. Lyubimkin aka JackYF, JID: jackyf.devel(maildog)gmail.com
C++/Perl developer, Debian Maintainer

[Murz (murznn)]

I think last comment to bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/+bug/122402 can help you to find a cdrom when booting from usb.

[Eugene V. Lyubimkin (jackyf-devel)]

Murz wrote:
> I think last comment to bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source
> /debian-installer/+bug/122402 can help you to find a cdrom when booting
> from usb.
>
Thanks for investigation! I will retry booting from USB once part1 of your
just reported bug against UNetbootin is fixed.

--
Eugene V. Lyubimkin aka JackYF, JID: jackyf.devel(maildog)gmail.com
C++/Perl developer, Debian Maintainer

[Eugene V. Lyubimkin (jackyf-devel)]

Hello.

Geza, unetbootin still doesn't work with Debian isos. Here's another Debian bug report: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=563738.

Please do something with it.

[Geza Kovacs (gezakovacs)]

Hi Eugene,

I'm trying to use the instructions at https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-installer/+bug/122402/comments/11 but they don't seem to work for for the Debian base install iso. Are you aware of any boot options or the like which fix this, without any instructions like "zcat some external file to usb drive" or the like? I don't like the approach you linked to at http://blogs.koolwal.net/2009/02/25/installing-linux-on-usb-part-7-install-debian-linux-from-usb-drive/ because that would require me to detect Debian base install iso files and handle them entirely differently from any other iso files, which would be hard to do reliably without introducing regressions with other iso files.

[Eugene V. Lyubimkin (jackyf-devel)]

Geza Kovacs wrote:
> Hi Eugene,
>
> I'm trying to use the instructions at
> https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debian-
> installer/+bug/122402/comments/11 but they don't seem to work for for
> the Debian base install iso. Are you aware of any boot options or the
> like which fix this, without any instructions like "zcat some external
> file to usb drive" or the like?
No.

 I don't like the approach you linked to
> at http://blogs.koolwal.net/2009/02/25/installing-linux-on-usb-part-7
> -install-debian-linux-from-usb-drive/ because that would require me to
> detect Debian base install iso files and handle them entirely
> differently from any other iso files, which would be hard to do reliably
> without introducing regressions with other iso files.

As a programmer, I fully understand you. However, the problem needs to be
dealt in some way. Is debian-installer the culprit of this bug? If yes, I can
try to get you in touch with Debian installer team.

--
Eugene V. Lyubimkin aka JackYF, JID: jackyf.devel(maildog)gmail.com
C++/Perl developer, Debian Developer

[Geza Kovacs (gezakovacs)]

As of the latest release (408), I've added an option to download the Debian hd-media kernel and initrd. Once this is done, all that remains for the user is to place the install iso of choice onto the root directory of the hard drive or USB drive (which is documented in the install notes for Debian), and the hd-media installer will find it and read from it. Unfortunately, this doesn't take care of the situation where the user doesn't read the install notes and simply passes in the iso file directly, but this is the best I can do for now until I have some more spare time.

[Eugene V. Lyubimkin (jackyf-devel)]

Geza Kovacs wrote:
> As of the latest release (408), I've added an option to download the
> Debian hd-media kernel and initrd. Once this is done, all that remains
> for the user is to place the install iso of choice onto the root
> directory of the hard drive or USB drive (which is documented in the
> install notes for Debian), and the hd-media installer will find it and
> read from it. Unfortunately, this doesn't take care of the situation
> where the user doesn't read the install notes and simply passes in the
> iso file directly, but this is the best I can do for now until I have
> some more spare time.
>
Ok, thanks for your efforts.

--
Eugene V. Lyubimkin aka JackYF, JID: jackyf.devel(maildog)gmail.com
C++/Perl developer, Debian Developer