Murphy prohibits Ubuntu 9.04 installation

[Elmar Krieger]

Dear Ubuntuers,

here is my feedback to help you improve Ubuntu:

*) In the boot menu of the Ubuntu 9.04 AMD64 CD, I chose to install 
right away. I have ~12 different Linux partitions on my hard disk, so I 
need to partition manually. This doesn't work however, because the 
installer tries to display all 12 partitions, which exceeds the 
horizontal screen resolution and makes all buttons on the right side 
invisible and thus inaccessible. I did not try to press invisible 
buttons randomly with <Tab> and <Return>, since that's suicide when 
partitioning the harddisk ;-). If there are keyboard shortcuts to scroll 
the screen horizontally, you really need to mention them.

*) 2nd try: I booted the life version from CD and clicked the 'Install' 
icon. This gave me a short message like 'Could not run ubiquity, 
Input/Output error'. This smelled like a CD problem, so I verified the 
iso's md5sum and chose to verify the CD in the boot menu. No problems 
were found.

*) 3rd try: I booted again the life version and clicked the 'Install' 
icon again. Now ubiquity could be launched. The horizontal size of the 
installation window was about two screens (remember, I got 12 
partitions, and that blows it up), but at least the window could be 
pulled around with the mouse, so the buttons could be made accessible. 
Installation reached about 90%, then ubiquity crashed with the message 
"Ubiquity closed unexpectedly...". Needless to say that this machine 
with two Dual-Core Opterons is my rock-stable workstation, which doesn't 
suffer from heat problems etc.

*) 4th try: Ubiquity crashed again at the same point around 90%.

*) Having given up on installation, I tried to reach my goal with just 
the life version. First task: connect to the Internet with mobile HSDPA 
  (Huawei E220 modem). I was amazed to see the modem recognized, a 
window offered me to select my provider. Mine wasn't there, so I picked 
the closest in the same country. Got a message to click the 'wireless 
icon' to connect. But this icon did not appear anywhere, so I gave up 
and simply copied over my bash script for connecting manually. Running 
this script gave 'wvdial not found, use apt-get...'. Unless Ubuntu 9.04 
completely changed the infrastructure, this is amazing: wvdial, a tiny 
but essential program to connect to the net, which is present by default 
in all Linux distros I've seen so far, is missing, and I'm asked to 
download it. Looks like a chicken&egg problem to me ;-)) I know space on 
the CD is tight, but this seemed like the wrong program to leave out..

*) I thought about filing a bug report, but at 
http://www.ubuntu.com/community/reportproblem I found a lengthy 
explanation how to file bugs from within Ubuntu, which obviously doesn't 
work without internet connection.

I posted this feedback hoping that the people in charge of the various 
problem sections stumble across and find it useful. You don't have to 
waste time helping me out, I booted to one of the other 12 partitions 
and will be back to try the next Ubuntu release ;-)

Best regards and thanks for your efforts,
Elmar