Debian Installer Bookworm Alpha 2 release
The Debian Installer team[1] is pleased to announce the second alpha release of the installer for Debian 12 "Bookworm".
Following the 2022 General Resolution about non-free firmware[2], many packages containing firmware files that can be requested by the Linux kernel at runtime were moved from non-free to non-free-firmware, making them eligible for inclusion on official media per the updated Social Contract #5.
Starting with this release, official images include firmware packages from main and non-free-firmware, along with metadata to configure the installed system accordingly. Our installation guide has been updated accordingly[3].
Improvements in this release
============================
* apt-setup:
- Add an apt-setup/non-free-firmware template, similar to the non-free
and contrib ones, used by 50mirror to enable the non-free-firmware
component: expert install only, disabled by default, but automatically
set when non-free firmware packages are installed.
- Factorize component handling across Debian generators, and add
support for non-free-firmware to all of them.
- Avoid leaving duplicate cdrom: entries in comments at the end of the
installation (#1029922).
* base-installer:
- Ignore multi-arch qualifier (#1020426).
* cdebconf:
- text: During progression, provide user feedback at least every
minute.
- newt: Align more items on top-left in braille mode.
* debian-cd:
- Refresh modalias information for firmware-sof-signed.
- Extend generated firmware metadata with component information.
- Include firmware packages based on the configured components (e.g.
main and non-free-firmware for official builds).
- Bump maximal image size to 1G for netinst CD images: 650 MB is no
longer enough, but current images are still below 700 MB.
- Implement a more robust installer lookup when booting from grub-efi,
using .disk/id/$UUID instead of .disk/info (#1024346, #1024720).
- All amd64 installation images will now boot on amd64 machines using
32-bit UEFI firwmare. Users no longer need the multi-arch installer
for those machines.
- Stop building multi-arch images accordingly.
- Delete support for win32-loader, which is no longer maintained.
* debian-installer:
- Switch to using bookworm artwork for the splash screens (Emerald).
- Fix missing glyphs for Georgian (#1017435).
- Bump Linux kernel ABI to 6.1.0-3.
* debootstrap:
- Add specific handling for the usr-is-merged package.
* espeakup:
- Set speakup_soft direct parameter to 1 in the installed system for
non-English language, to fix the pronunciation of symbols and
numbers.
- Avoid warning about missing mbrola voices.
- Run espeakup in a loop, to compensate for crashes.
* grub-installer:
- Fix missing debconf module integration.
* grub2:
- Add commented-out GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER section to /etc/default/grub
to make it easier for users to turn os-prober back on if they want
it (#1013797, #1009336).
* hw-detect:
- Add support for Contents-firmware indices to speed up firmware
lookup (from requested files to available packages), keeping the
manual lookup as a fallback.
- Add support for component detection, enabling apt-setup/$component
automatically.
- Resolve “usb” module into the underlying module when it requests
firmware files (e.g. rtl8192cu for a RTL8188CUS USB Wi-Fi dongle),
to reload the right module after deploying the relevant firmware
package.
- Delete support for loading udeb firmware packages (*.udeb, *.ude).
- Note: Use cases regarding loading firmware from external storage
remain to be clarified (#1029543). With firmware packages being
included on official images, this is expected to be much less useful
than it was.
- Skip the historical link up/link down dance on some network
interfaces: while it's useful to ensure modules request firmware
files they might require, it's actively harmful if the interface has
been configured (e.g. manually or via preseed): the link is up and/or
it's involved in a bond.
- Implement support for the hw-detect/firmware-lookup=never setting
(#1029848).
* libdebian-installer:
- Ignore multiarch qualifier suffix (#1020783).
* localechooser:
- Enable Vietnamese in non-bogl console.
* ifupdown:
- Fix missing /etc/network/interfaces configuration for wireless
connections when NetworkManager isn't installed, changing its mode
to 600 for secure connections since it ends up containing secrets
(#1029352, first issue).
- Adjust /etc/network/interfaces configuration for wireless connections
with both DHCP and SLAAC: only write a DHCP stanza and let RAs do the
rest at runtime (#1029352, second issue).
* preseed:
- Add “firmware” alias for “hw-detect/firmware-lookup” (#1029848).
* rootskel:
- reopen-console-linux: When speakup is requested, prefer tty1 which
is the only console that speakup can read.
* rootskel-gtk:
- Update artwork with the Emerald theme.
* user-setup:
- Remove support for unshadowed passwords.
Hardware support changes
========================
* debian-installer:
- [amd64, arm64] Build netboot images for ChromeOS devices. More
changes are required for these images to be useful.
* grub2:
- Add smbios to the signed grub efi images (#1008106).
- Add serial to the signed grub efi images (#1013962).
- Don't strip Xen binaries so they work again (#1017944).
- Enable EFI zboot support on arm64 (#1026092).
- Ignore some new ext2 flags to stay compatible with latest mke2fs
defaults (#1030846).
* linux:
- udeb: Move ledtrig-audio from sound-modules to kernel-image
- udeb: Also add drivers in subdirectories of drivers/net/phy
- [arm64] Add nvmem-imx-ocotp driver to kernel-image udeb
- [arm64] Add imx2_wdt driver to kernel-image udeb
- [arm64] Add i2c-imx to i2c-modules udeb
Localization status
===================
* 78 languages are supported in this release.
* Full translation for 40 of them.
Known bugs in this release
==========================
* Encrypted LVM might fail on low memory systems (#1028250).
See the errata[4] for details and a full list of known issues.
Feedback for this release
=========================
We need your help to find bugs and further improve the installer, so please try it. Installation images, and everything else you will need are available at our web site[5].
Thanks
======
The Debian Installer team thanks everybody who has contributed to this release.
1. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Team
2. https://www.debian.org/vote/2022/vote_003
3. https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/ch02s02
4. https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/errata
5. https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer
Cheers,
--
Cyril Brulebois
In preparation for the upcoming Debian GNU/Linux 12 Bookworm, Cyril Brulebois has announced the availability of the installer's second alpha version. The new version now includes non-free firmware as part of the base image.
