On Fri 04 Dec 2020 at 22:56:41 (+1100), David wrote: > On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 at 20:00, David <bouncingc...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 at 03:39, <pe...@easthope.ca> wrote: > > > > > David, the current procedure is simple enough. Have you or anyone you > > > > trust run the procedure with the specific three (iso, vmlinuz, > > > > initrd.gz) files you cited? > > > > Yes ... > > > Looking now, I can confirm that I did a Debian installation here on 20 > > Oct 2020 using these files. There is no doubt because they are still > > on the hard drive. > > Actually it was 14 Oct, just for the record :) > > I have just now done another fresh install, this time using the same 3 files > on a blank hard drive, it worked to completion without your complaint > occurring. > > Due to actually going through the entire procedure on a blank drive > so as to catch any unanticipated hiccups due to the process being > different to my usual one, I can add some more thoughts about that: > > 1) grub needs a partition table on the target device so it can do > embedding, so the target device can't be an entire block device (eg > sdx) it must be a partition[*] (eg sdxN where N is some natural number) > > 2) And you probably need at least N=2 on an older machine. > If there is sufficient RAM, the installer offers to load itself > into RAM which frees up the partition where the iso is, so that it can > be overwritten by the new install. If the RAM is insufficient this is > not possible, so the partition where the iso is must be specified > "do not use" because it is mounted and in use by the installer, so > the new install must be done into another partition. I would > deal with this by converting our installer boot partition to a /boot > partition manually after the install is complete and rebooted > into the new partition.
With such a small disk, I'd try modifying that suggestion: dispense with /home, but only during the installation, making partition 3 the one used for the iso ( and marked "do not use"): Part 1 labeled ROOT. 7 GB. Format ext4. Part 2 labeled SWAP. 1 GB. Format swap or linux-swap. Part 3 labeled HOME. 4 GB. Format ext4. (The LABEL doesn't affect things.) When the installation has completed, you can now, as root, . mount Part 3 as /mnt . clear any installation files off it . cp -a /home/<sysadmin> /mnt/ (which should be user 1000's ~, containing just the files that were copied from /etc/skel) . edit /etc/fstab to mount LABEL=HOME on /home . umount /mnt/ . mount -a (to mount /home) . login ordinarily, as sysadmin. That increases your space on /home by 14%. > 3) The grub.cfg I used was > > menuentry 'Debian Installer' { > insmod part_msdos > insmod ext4 > set root='(hd0,msdos1)' > linux /vmlinuz priority=medium > initrd /initrd.gz > } > > I suggest the use of priority=medium which allows you to > choose which [*]partitions are searched for the iso, which might help. > Once the problem is resolved you can remove that or > change it to what you prefer: low or high (which eg specifies > that only a few high priority questions are asked during install). … and low gives you expert installation. Cheers, David.