Installing Debian HVM DomU on Xen: Grub installation error

[Paul Leiber <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

due to ongoing instabilities with Xen on a Raspberry Pi (seemingly 
random crashes where I couldn't figure out the cause yet, I suspect 
networking as the root cause), I am switching to a low-powered x64 
platform (APU 4D4 with GX-412TC CPU). I already have the same hardware 
running very stably for a couple of years with Xen for a different purpose.
I now have installed Debian Trixie as a Dom0 on the hardware, and then 
went through the usual hoops to install Xen on the system, which seems 
to be running running fine so far.
Then I tried to install a Debian DomU. It seems that things have gotten 
more complicated than I am used to:
- The xen-tools package with the handy create-xen-image tool is not 
available for Trixie. Ok, install a Debian HVM instead.
- Starting a HVM DomU with networking is not possible without manually 
installing ipxe-qemu package (bug 1120146 which already has been fixed, 
but is not in the current release yet [1]).
- When running the Debian (I tried both Trixie and Bookworm, with the 
same result) installer from a netinstall image as HVM DomU, the 
installer fails while installing grub with error code 1 (last couple of 
installation log lines below). I couldn't find any related bug so far. I 
tried both BIOS and UEFI boot methods, with the same outcome.
On the plus side, the issue with the OVMF package seems to have been 
fixed? [2] At least the installation iso is booting with OVMF out of the 
box.
I now am stuck and would be grateful for any pointers, specifically:

1. Does anybody have a hint how to install a Debian Trixie HVM DomU?
2. Does anybody have xen-tools running or another efficient way to 
create a Trixie PV DomU?
Best regards,

Paul

Installation log:
Dec 22 22:17:13 in-target: Setting up grub-common (2.12-9) ...
Dec 22 22:17:13 in-target: ^M
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: Created symlink 
'/etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/grub-common.service' → 
'/usr/lib/systemd/system/grub-common.service'.^M
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: ^M
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: Created symlink 
'/etc/systemd/system/suspend.target.wants/grub-common.service' → 
'/usr/lib/systemd/system/grub-common.service'.^M
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: ^M
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: Created symlink 
'/etc/systemd/system/hibernate.target.wants/grub-common.service' → 
'/usr/lib/systemd/system/grub-common.service'.^M^M
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: Created symlink 
'/etc/systemd/system/hybrid-sleep.target.wants/grub-common.service' → 
'/usr/lib/systemd/system/grub-common.service'.^M^M
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: Created symlink 
'/etc/systemd/system/suspend-then-hibernate.target.wants/grub-common.service' 
→ '/usr/lib/systemd/system/grub-common.service'.^M^M
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: Setting up os-prober (1.83) ...
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: ^M
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: Processing triggers for initramfs-tools 
(0.148.3) ...
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: ^M
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: update-initramfs: Generating 
/boot/initrd.img-6.12.57+deb13-amd64
Dec 22 22:17:14 in-target: ^M
Dec 22 22:17:53 in-target: Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.41-12) ...^M
Dec 22 22:17:53 in-target: Processing triggers for man-db (2.13.1-1) ...
Dec 22 22:17:53 in-target: ^M
Dec 22 22:17:55 kernel: [ 1600.010775] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft 
Joliet Level 3
Dec 22 22:17:55 kernel: [ 1600.020147] ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
Dec 22 22:17:56 kernel: [ 1600.184705] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft 
Joliet Level 3
Dec 22 22:17:56 kernel: [ 1600.193352] ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
Dec 22 22:17:56 /bin/in-target: warning: /target/etc/mtab won't be 
updated since it is a symlink.
Dec 22 22:17:57 in-target: Reading package lists...
Dec 22 22:17:57 in-target:
Dec 22 22:17:57 in-target: Building dependency tree...
Dec 22 22:17:58 in-target:
Dec 22 22:17:58 in-target: Reading state information...
Dec 22 22:17:58 in-target:
Dec 22 22:18:01 in-target: grub-common is already the newest version 
(2.12-9).
Dec 22 22:18:01 in-target: 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove 
and 0 not upgraded.
Dec 22 22:18:02 kernel: [ 1606.330139] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft 
Joliet Level 3
Dec 22 22:18:02 kernel: [ 1606.339875] ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
Dec 22 22:18:02 kernel: [ 1606.503113] ISO 9660 Extensions: Microsoft 
Joliet Level 3
Dec 22 22:18:02 kernel: [ 1606.511610] ISO 9660 Extensions: RRIP_1991A
Dec 22 22:18:02 main-menu[312]: WARNING **: Configuring 'grub-installer' 
failed with error code 1
Dec 22 22:18:02 main-menu[312]: WARNING **: Menu item 'grub-installer' 
failed.
[1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1120146
[2] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1050030