Ubiquity installer not usable on machines with <= 256 MB of RAM

[Krzysztof Lichota]

Matt Zimmerman napisał(a):
> On Mon, May 08, 2006 at 10:24:34AM +0200, Krzysztof Lichota wrote:
>> I want to draw your attention to bug I have reported about Ubiquity:
>> https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/43071/
>>
>> Basically, if you have 256 MB of RAM or less and do not have swap
>> partition (which of course most Windows users do not have), you cannot
>> install Kubuntu (Ubuntu probably too).
> 
> My default vmware test configuration uses 256MB of RAM and no swap.

Vmware is not the same as real system. I guess X server does not use RAM
in Vmware. Laptops use also some memory for video memory (in my case it
is 16 MB, but one other person reported it as 32 MB), so it is less than
256 MB in reality.

And is your test checking installation of other locales than English?
From my tests it seems localedef is taking 50 MB of memory (temporarily,
but it is peak usage and then my system freezes).

>> IMO this makes Dapper user base really limited and I guess it is not the
>> point.
>>
>> I have proposed some solutions:
>> 1. Adding text-mode Ubiquity.
> 
> We already have a text-mode installer which has reduced memory requirements,
> though the memory requirements for the live CD are pretty similar to the
> installed system itself.

But it is not distributed in ShipIt.

>> 2. Adding swap on Windows partition/in free space if available.
> 
> This is dangerous, and I don't think we should do it.

Maybe. I have heard that overwriting files on NTFS is reliable. FAT
should not be a problem.

>> 3. Spawning only Ubiquity in Xserver (simplest, but does not work for
>> 128 MB of RAM).
> 
> If the system doesn't have enough memory to run GNOME, KDE or XFCE
> comfortably, what is the point in jumping through hoops to allow Ubiquity to
> be used to install it?

System has enough memory provided there is a swap file/partition, which
is not available until second phase of installer (after partitions are
set up).

>> I didn't get much response and I think it is critical issue. Because,
>> what is the point of distributing LiveCD which user cannot install?
> 
> You got a response from a developer the very next day after you filed the
> bug, on a Saturday I might add.

Yes, but as I said the response was that it is desktop environment
problem, not Ubiquity. And Dapper is 3 weeks away.

I will try to test Ubuntu version tomorrow, along with Flight 7 of
Kubuntu to see if the problem is still there.

Regards

	Krzysztof Lichota

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