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installation from USB w/ multiple ISOs?

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  installation from USB w/ multiple ISOs? Greg Marks <gtmarks@gmail.com> - 2017-10-23 02:30 +0200
    Re: installation from USB w/ multiple ISOs? "Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net> - 2017-10-23 09:50 +0200
    Re: installation from USB w/ multiple ISOs? Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> - 2017-10-23 19:00 +0200

#188191 — installation from USB w/ multiple ISOs?

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In order to install Debian from a bootable USB drive, the procedure is:
format a thumb drive to FAT32, determine the thumb drive location as
/dev/sdX, and run commands of the form

   sudo dd if=debian-9.2.1-amd64-DVD-1.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M
   sudo sync

after downloading the appropriate ISO file from

   https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/

One can usually install Debian using only the first of the
ISO files (in this example, debian-9.2.1-amd64-DVD-2.iso and
debian-9.2.1-amd64-DVD-3.iso are typically unnecessary).  But it would
be nice to have these files available for installation, especially on
a machine with a slow Internet connection.  Assuming the bootable USB
drive has enough capacity, as most do nowadays (13 GB should suffice),
can the second and third ISO files be saved to the same USB drive?
Does one need to partition the drive and save the extra ISOs to the
partition, and is this done after first running the dd command above?
During installation, will the installer ask one to insert the (supposed)
DVDs with the second and third ISOs at some point; if so, how does one
direct the installer to the ISO images on the USB drive?

--G.M.

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#188196

Hi,

Greg Marks wrote:
> In order to install Debian from a bootable USB drive, the procedure is:
> format a thumb drive to FAT32,

This first step is quite useless. The dd run to put the ISO onto the stick
will overwrite the partition table.

You should rather consider to make a backup of the whole stick if its
content is of any value:

  dd if=/dev/sdX bs=1M | gzip >backup_of_sdX.gz


> Assuming the bootable USB
> drive has enough capacity, as most do nowadays (13 GB should suffice),
> can the second and third ISO files be saved to the same USB drive?

The main problem will be with telling Debian that the ISOs contain
packages which shall be installable.
Maybe
  https://wiki.debian.org/SourcesList
is an entry point for exploration. Maybe other users here can give examples.


For storing the ISOs on the USB stick you need one or two new partitions
after the first ISO was copied to it. The stick will then already have
two MBR partitions, like

  $ /sbin/fdisk -l /dev/sdc
  ...
  Device    Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
  /dev/sdc1 *        0 7798783 7798784  3.7G  0 Empty
  /dev/sdc2      20216   21047     832  416K ef EFI (FAT-12/16

The partition editor fdisk is tolerant enough not to take offense from the
type "Empty" of partition 1 and of the fact that partition 2 is inside
partition 1. It will also ignore the (invalid) GPT and its backup at the
end of partition 1.

The actual choice of partition layout depends on your solution for the
problem of presenting the ISOs to Debian, 

You could create one partition that covers the rest of the stick. This
would be formatted with a filesystemi. The two ISOs would be put into
the filesystem either as two big data files or unpacked into trees of
the ISOs' content files.

Alternatively you could create two partitions, each of the size of one
of the ISOs. Then you'd put each ISO as filesystem into its own partition:
  dd if=DVD-2.iso of=/dev/sdX3
  dd if=DVD-3.iso of=/dev/sdX5
(I assume you'd use partition 4 as extended partition and create logical
 partition 5 as storage for the DVD-3 ISO.)


Have a nice day :)

Thomas

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#188213

On Sun 22 Oct 2017 at 19:15:27 -0500, Greg Marks wrote:

> In order to install Debian from a bootable USB drive, the procedure is:
> format a thumb drive to FAT32, determine the thumb drive location as
> /dev/sdX, and run commands of the form
> 
>    sudo dd if=debian-9.2.1-amd64-DVD-1.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M
>    sudo sync
> 
> after downloading the appropriate ISO file from
> 
>    https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/
> 
> One can usually install Debian using only the first of the
> ISO files (in this example, debian-9.2.1-amd64-DVD-2.iso and
> debian-9.2.1-amd64-DVD-3.iso are typically unnecessary).  But it would
> be nice to have these files available for installation, especially on
> a machine with a slow Internet connection.  Assuming the bootable USB
> drive has enough capacity, as most do nowadays (13 GB should suffice),
> can the second and third ISO files be saved to the same USB drive?
> Does one need to partition the drive and save the extra ISOs to the
> partition, and is this done after first running the dd command above?
> During installation, will the installer ask one to insert the (supposed)
> DVDs with the second and third ISOs at some point; if so, how does one
> direct the installer to the ISO images on the USB drive?

https://wiki.debian.org/Installation+Archive+USBStick

-- 
Brian.

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