[Bug 2105453] Re: 25.04 autoinstall fails on transitional deb/snap

[Olivier Gayot]

It is a bit annoying.

If we want the ability to install such packages before first boot, we'd
need a way to run snapd in the target system.

Otherwise, the option is probably to install packages on first boot,
like we do with snaps.

I suspect listing the packages in autoinstall.user-data.packages instead
of autoinstall.packages would do the trick.

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Title:
  25.04 autoinstall fails on transitional deb/snap

Status in subiquity:
  New
Status in firefox package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in subiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  The autoinstall 25.04 fails on installing transisional snaps (debs which install snaps) when specified through autoinstall yaml. This was tested with both ubuntu-desktop-minimal (which depends on transitional firefox) and chromium-browser debs.
  This bug was not present with the 24.10 and 24.04 installers so it appears to be a regression of subiquity.

  
  [Testing]

  # get latest server live installer iso
  wget https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-server/daily-live/current/plucky-live-server-amd64.iso
  # create autoinstaller config
  cat >user-data <<EOF
  #cloud-config
  autoinstall:
    version: 1
    identity:
      realname: 'Ubuntu User'
      username: ubuntu
      # pass ubuntu
      password: $y$j9T$UZRAMHPJuyNCTCMoZifEn.$Ah7fL4j5OlwL/T.vU429diDIA64ntEhQslzCxscHZoD
      hostname: tstvm
    update: true
    channel: latest/edge
    locale: en_US.UTF-8
    keyboard:
      layout: us
    packages:
      # either of those break
      - ubuntu-desktop-minimal
      - chromium-browser
  EOF
  cloud-localds preinst.img user-data
  # create disk
  qemu-img create -f qcow2 foo.img 20G
  # launch autoinstaller vm
  kvm -smp 4 -m 2G -drive file=foo.img -nic user -cdrom plucky-live-server-amd64.iso --drive file=preinst.img

  
  [Other Info]

  * The fact that metapackages (e.g. ubuntu-desktop) depend on those transitional debs limits the usage of autoinstalling those snaps though the `snap` feature.
  * A workaround for purely `recommends` package, is to inject a pin priority of -1000 to prevent their installation altogether, allowing the installation of metapackages (e.g. ubuntu-desktop-minimal) to succeed. e.g.

  autoinstall:
    apt:
      preferences:
        - package: firefox*
          pin: release o=ubuntu
          pin-priority: -1000

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