current latest download of LinuxCNC V2.9.8 will not install GRUB on several PC's

This is the plan. Keep in mind, all who follow, that if you finish the installation completely offline-no internet access-your Debian package sources files will be empty. You will have to create the .sources file, or when you do sudo apt install you will get "could not find" and when you do sudo apt unpdate it will run through the updates and say there is nothing to update.

Its not possible to install Debian without an internet connection (hardwired is best) The Linuxcnc installer depends on internet (It uses the Debian Live INstaller). Try offline at your own risk

Hello,

I had a similar issue where I had to skip the grub boot installer step.

I found a solution is to install like normal and skip that step, then launch the usb boot drive live. From there, I had to mount the efi drive partition (/dev/sda1 I think it was). Then I went and renamed the Debian directory in EFI to boot and the grubx64.efi file to bootx64.efi and then everything booted fine.

I was doing this on an old Mac so it could have been a little different.

Rod, I literally just did exactly that. It booted and worked perfectly fine, with the caveat that the .sources list for Aptitude is empty, and you need to manually populate it.

Once manually populated, the system was able to be connected to the internet and it worked exactly as you'd expect with regard to installing new packages.

rodw wrote:

Its not possible to install Debian without an internet connection (hardwired is best) The Linuxcnc installer depends on internet (It uses the Debian Live INstaller).

Debian WILL install and run without internet connection, all the ISO versions except the Net version.
Your version does NOT install and run without it.
Over 2 years of never ending issues...
Remaster the Debian ISO, everything works properly.

But the default Debian download on their home page is the netinst ISO, same as LinuxCNC. You need to follow the link to other downloads and select the complete installation image to install on an offline PC. The Linuxcnc 2.8 installer on Debian 10 used the same installer so nothing has changed for many years.

I found out the hard way this week that the Debian installer deletes packages that are not used at run time. eg if you go to the trouble of deploying LinuxCNC built from source in the installer, (eg a 2.10pre version), you must reinstall the dependencies if you want to rebuild the image.  The build time dependendcies are removed before the ISO is created.There are settings that are meant to prevent this but they did not work for me.

The days of Debian fitting on a single DVD must be over. I thought they maxed out at 4.7 gb. The image I built  yesterday came in at 5.15 gb.

I'm off to buy a CPU cooler today. Debian 12/13 do not manage heat well or my 20 core Lenovo i7 is underspec in the CPU cooling department as it regularly overheats and hangs during video rendering or compiling. Hopefully I can shoehorn one in in this small desktop case!