Wubi developer would be interested in helping with developing the installer tool in Gutsy

[ago]

My suggestions on the topic are:

1. Embed LVPM functionality within Ubiquity, since LVPM can be
considered an extension of a standard Ubiquity installation, where the
running system is basically copied over the target mountpoint, grub is
installed, fstab is generated... It's a bit late in the process but
there shouldn't be much to do there (I am sure Evan and Colin have
quite a packed schedule, but I guess Geza might be able to submit the
required patches). In particular, I do not think there will be any
loop-installation-specific patches to deal with in gutsy (which was
the main goal of lupin-merge), since most of the old patches are (or
will be) incorporated upstream (killall5, menu.lst path remapping,
ntfs-3g inclusion...), the loopinstall initrd is the same as a
standard one, and the only things left should be sysctl settings and
hibernation/suspend checks, which will only be active if we are on a
loopinstallation. Hence, provided that menu.lst and fstab are changed
appropriately, a gutsy loopinstallation system should work "as is"
within an hardisk installation context. So like we had a lupin-merge,
an lvpm-merge might also be pursued. That said, I do not know whether
you can resize the partition that hosts your live root filesystem (I
guess not), LVPM assumes that a free partition is created separately
by the user.

2. If the above is accepted, install Ubiquity whenever you do a loop
installation

3. Have an icon on the desktop with something like "Upgrade Ubuntu to
a Dedicated Partition". The icon will have the double role of making
it clear that loopinstallations are a short-term solution. When
clicked, the user will see a short and simple explanation about pros
(robustness, i/o speed, hibernation/suspend) and cons (need to
repartition the HD) of using a dedicated partition. If the user
agrees, ubiquity will be launched.

PS I like the LVM idea.


Ago