Hi Pascal,
Thanks for answering.
On 2026-02-08 15:55, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
On 08/02/2026 at 16:26, Johannes Linkels wrote:
However, I have seen older installation videos using debian-13.x
(unknown major revision) using the graphical installer which did not
show this behavior. It might be this bug is only in the text based
installer.
How do you know the EFI system partition did not already contain a FAT
filesystem in these videos ?
I did not know. I did not make a statement about it either.
By "graphical installer", do you mean the debian-installer graphical
front end launched in the boot menu or the Calamares installer
launched in a Debian live session ?
I mean the Debian installer graphical front end. I never use the
graphical front end myself. But it seems every blogger or Youtuber uses
it to write installation reports. Until this installation I assumed the
installer was the same only the front end differs. However, a user
choice (format/no format) getting thru to the partitioner could be a
user interface issue. I just don't know, I have never seen the source
code of the installer. I just reported what I saw and what I experienced.
Debian-installer works the same with the text and graphical front
ends. Calamares is a totally different tool.
The workaround is to leave the partitioner and perform a manual
format in FAT on the EFI partition and return to the installation
process. I am not sure if this is possible by entering the Ash shell
provided by the installer.
It is of course possible, mkfs.fat is available in the installer
shell. You can also set the partition "use as: FAT32 filesystem",
commit, then set it "use as: EFI system partition".
Thanks for confirming the availability of mkfs.fat. I will test that in
the next installation. It would be the easiest option. I know the
installer throws an error when there is no EFI partition. So I did not
try to use as: FAT32. Would be another workaround.
Kind regards
jlinkels
