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I would like instructions on how to modify Debian Installer. Or, better yet an alternative. I have looked at Ubiquity -- But, whilst I do want something similar, Ubiquity isn't what I want.

I would really like to modify the Debian Installer, so that questions asked of the user about timezones, keyboards, passwords, and such are removed from the installation process.

I have already looked here https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Modify and here https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/apb.html.en and here https://debian-handbook.info/browse/stable/sect.automated-installation.html -- So I know that I should write a preseed file in order to automate the installation, and move the questions. But that doesn't answer my problem.

"In order to easily avoid the questions that would normally appear before the preseeding occurs, you can start the installer in “auto” mode. This delays questions that would normally be asked too early for preseeding (i.e. language, country and keyboard selection) until after the network comes up, thus allowing them to be preseeded. It also runs the installation at critical priority, which avoids many unimportant questions. See Section B.2.3, “Auto mode” for details."

Also you can't setup partitions, or choose where you wish to install the system:

"Although most questions used by debian-installer can be preseeded using this method, there are some notable exceptions. You must (re)partition an entire disk or use available free space on a disk; it is not possible to use existing partitions."

So I would like to know, how to remove the questions from the installation, whilst still being able to allow the partitioning.

P.S. Have I explained the problem properly?

daniel hoggan
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Documentation on preseeding from ubuntu.com. The example preseed on what this documentation refers to can be found here. The example covers all the options you can skip and has bits on how to do partitioning.

Regarding:

So I would like to know, how to remove the questions from the installation, whilst still being able to allow the partitioning.

You can but need to select either the whole disk or unallocated space on a disk but inside that you can set up partitions. See B.4.7. Partitioning

Using preseeding to partition the harddisk is limited to what is supported by partman-auto. You can choose to partition either existing free space on a disk or a whole disk. The layout of the disk can be determined by using a predefined recipe, a custom recipe from a recipe file or a recipe included in the preconfiguration file.

Preseeding of advanced partition setups using RAID, LVM and encryption is supported, but not with the full flexibility possible when partitioning during a non-preseeded install.

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Rinzwind
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