Thank you for your good hints, Andrew. My approach is different. I am in the lucky position that the question is of theoretical interest to me this time only, in the past I had cases where I had to use testing, because the kernel of the installer was too old to support basic functions of my hardware.
On IRC I was recommended to build a custom image of the d-i. This was actually provided as a service in the past at https://kmuto.jp/debian/d-i/ but has been discontinued since long. I found a short description for changing the d-i kernel at https://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Modify/CustomKernel. I guess it should work, as long as the kernel is not too new for the rest of the system. I think it would be great to provide such a (semi-)official support for backported kernels in the installer again. There is probably a significant number of users which use testing, just because they can't install stable on their systems. Regards, Christian On 2022-04-14 12:00 UTC+0200, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: > On Thu, Apr 14, 2022 at 11:16:00AM +0200, Christian Britz wrote: >> Hello dear Debianists, >> >> if a new system has at least basic hardware support by the kernel >> provided by the Debian installer, you can solve many hardware problems >> by installing a newer kernel from backports after the system setup. >> >> Is there a solution for the case where the installer kernel is too old >> for core components like storage system support? Is there a way to use >> the installer itself with a backports kernel? >> >> Regards, >> Christian >> -- >> http://www.cb-fraggle.de >> > > This is a hard one: the kernel, initial ram disk and firmware are all fairly > closely aligned in the install medium. > > If you can get through much of the installer with the d-i kernel: > > You may be able to drop down to a shell in the target environment - edit > /etc/apt/sources.list to add the backports repository. > > At the end, just before you exit - drop to the target shell once again and apt > install the new kernel and newer firmware. > > Rerun the grub-install step just to check - then exit. > > As you reboot, so the backports kernel should be first. > > If graphics card configuration/firmware is an issue: text mode expert install > may well help - the text mode install tries to find compatible VESA modes. > > In some sense: this is the issue of very new hardware - for any distribution - > and there's no good clear answer. Debian - on a two year release cycle now, > more or less - is at least ahead of Red Hat where the distribution may have > to be kept stable in kernel version and ABI but current for ten years > afterwards. > > All the very best, as ever, > > Andy Cater > -- http://www.cb-fraggle.de
