(Please provide enough information to help the Debian
maintainers evaluate the report efficiently - e.g., by filling
in the sections below.)

Boot method: usb
Image version: https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/weekly-live-builds/amd64/iso-hybrid/debian-live-testing-amd64-gnome.iso, accessed 7 Aug 2025
Date: 7 Aug 2025

Machine: Dell Precision 3660
Partitions:
$ df -Tl
Filesystem                          Type     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev                                devtmpfs   7959288        0   7959288   0% /dev
tmpfs                               tmpfs      1606428     1872   1604556   1% /run
efivarfs                            efivarfs       438      304       130  71% /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
/dev/mapper/dev--linux--01--vg-root ext4     230643920 10586832 208268188   5% /
tmpfs                               tmpfs      8032136       12   8032124   1% /dev/shm
tmpfs                               tmpfs         5120        8      5112   1% /run/lock
tmpfs                               tmpfs         1024        0      1024   0% /run/credentials/systemd-journald.service
/dev/nvme0n1p2                      ext4        965872   165060    734408  19% /boot
tmpfs                               tmpfs      8032136       84   8032052   1% /tmp
/dev/nvme0n1p1                      vfat        997456   159980    837476  17% /boot/efi
tmpfs                               tmpfs      1606424      144   1606280   1% /run/user/1000



Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it

Initial boot:           [o]
Detect network card:    [o]
Configure network:      [o]
Detect media:           [o]
Load installer modules: [o]
Clock/timezone setup:   [o]
User/password setup:    [o]
Detect hard drives:     [o]
Partition hard drives:  [o]
Install base system:    [o]
Install tasks:          [o]
Install boot loader:    [e]
Overall install:        [o]

Comments/Problems:

I wanted to try out systemd-boot, so went through the text-mode expert install.
Selected defaults for everything up until the bootloader menu entries.
Skipped grub install and selected the systemd-boot entry. A relevant
part of the log is below:

sudo cat /var/log/installer/syslog | grep systemd-boot
Aug  7 18:47:00 anna[2666]: DEBUG: retrieving systemd-boot-installer 0.11
Aug  7 18:54:02 main-menu[463]: INFO: Menu item 'systemd-boot-installer' selected
Aug  7 18:54:02 in-target: Package systemd-boot is not available, but is referred to by another package.
Aug  7 18:54:02 in-target:  Package 'systemd-boot' has no installation candidate
Aug  7 18:54:02 main-menu[463]: WARNING **: Configuring 'systemd-boot-installer' failed with error code 100
Aug  7 18:54:02 main-menu[463]: WARNING **: Menu item 'systemd-boot-installer' failed.

Then finished installation with the grub option.

Please make sure that any installation logs that you think would
be useful are attached to this report. (You can find them in the
installer system in /var/log/ and later on the installed system
under /var/log/installer.) Please compress large files using gzip.

Hi Alex,

and thanks for the report.

Alex Forrence <alex.forrence@gmail.com> (2025-08-07):

Any chance you could try a non-live image, like D-I Trixie RC 3 netinst?
https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/trixie_di_rc3/amd64/iso-cd/debian-trixie-DI-rc3-amd64-netinst.iso

(I'm not familiar with live images, not sure whether the issue is
live-specific.)


Cheers,

...

This is a deliberate choice so far, as discussed with the systemd
maintainer. systemd-boot is not a default option for installation and
so isn't included in all the images by default. If you make sure you
use a network mirror during installation, things should work fine.

I just tested, it also fails because no mirror is configured. During the
"configure package manager" step, the mirror selection does not happen.
The package apt-mirror-setup seems to be missing in trixie live images.

perform (at least) 2 things differently than the installer on the
netinst images:
1) it copies the content of the live system to the HD instead of
performing a clean installation
2) it assumes off-line installation

By using the expert mode, you'll enter an untested path. systemd-boot is
not present on the live medium (because it is not part of the default
installation path) and the mirror is not configured (because it is
assumed to have an off-line installation).

I've have some thoughts to improve this situation, but that will not be
in time for the next point release of bookworm or for the initial
release of trixie:

The installation step can be renamed to something like 'Copy the live
system to the computer' (which does not use the word 'install')
I've also looked whether the regular installer could be activated (as an
alternative option). For this to work, the CD-ROM image needs to be
marked as 'incomplete', which forces d-i to request network access to
download the missing package(s).

Given that the live images are read-only, the latter might be possible
using a clever overlay, but I've not further investigated that possibility.

Short version: If you want to experiment with special options during
installation, please use the netinst image for now instead of a live image.

With kind regards,
Roland Clobus

Hi Steve and Cyril,

Thanks for the help, using the netinst + configuring a mirror worked.

Best,
Alex

But why skip the mirror setup step ? The installed system requires
further configuration to perform security updates or install packages,
this is not great.

No need, AFAICS bookworm live images include apt-mirror-setup and not
systemd-boot-installer.

Control: severity -1 serious

It seems this second decision is causing a *lot* of confusion for
users. We should try to get this fixed for the upcoming point release,
IMHO.

Raising severity of this accordingly.

Hello all,

I also came to this realization that Trixie live-build images do not
install a proper entry in /etc/apt/sources.list, only a deb cdrom entry
when performing an installation using the ‘live-installer’ option from
the Grub menu. Average users have no idea how to upgrade their systems
this way. I am of the opinion that apt-mirror-setup should defenitively
be included in the live-installer.

Best regards,
Jeroen Diederen

Hello all,

Following up from my previous post.

I tried an expert installation from a Trixie image created by live-build
and deliberately added "choose-mirror" as additional installer
component. The setup during the installation looked alright, it gave the
option to choose a mirror and the option to chose additional
update/security/backports repositories.

After installation and reboot into the new system I was surprised to see
that no entries had been added in /etc/apt/sources.list. The only entry
present was the deb cdrom: Trixie Snapshot. It is clear that
live-installer needs to be fixed.

Best regards,
Jeroen Diederen

This is expected. choose-mirror is only useful for netboot images which
need to download everything from a mirror. CD/DVD and live images load
installer components and install the base system from the installation
medium and do not have any use for it. I do not see why it is included
in ISO images.