replacing the Startup Disk Creator

[Nio Wiklund]

Den 2015-09-21 kl. 18:03, skrev Nicholas Skaggs:
> On 09/19/2015 07:29 AM, Marc Deslauriers wrote:
>> On 2015-09-19 07:04 AM, Nio Wiklund wrote:
...
>>>
>> That's a very interesting spreadsheet, thanks for doing that. It seems
>> most
>> issues are:
>>
>> - A known bug in udisks that prevents the erase function from working
>> reliably
>> (LP: #1460602)
>>
>> - A mismatch between syslinux versions between the host system
>> creating the usb
>> key and the version being installed (LP: #1325801)
>>
>> - A limitation of the fix for the syslinux issue that prevents amd64
>> images from
>> being created on i386 systems (LP: #1446646)
>>
>>
>> I believe a simple way to eliminate every one of these issues at once
>> in UDC
>> would be to get rid of the persistence functionality. All of the
>> currently
>> supported images can now be written directly to a usb device as-is.
>>
>> The syslinux and boot loader mangling that is currently required for
>> persistence
>> and used to be required for older end of life releases is a constant
>> source of
>> problems each time a new release come out and is difficult to get working
>> properly on mismatched architectures.
>>
>> Removing persistence would also simplify the user interface and would
>> remove the
>> need of having the "Erase Disk" button, therefore eliminating the
>> known udisks
>> issue as a side effect.
>>
>> Advanced users who require generating a usb key with persistence can
>> simply use
>> one of the other tools that are available. Perhaps in the future
>> persistence
>> could be added back by creating a partition in the free space left
>> over after
>> copying over the image.
>>
>> Changing UDC to remove persistence and to copy images as-is is a
>> trivial change,
>> and I am willing to volunteer to do it.
>>
>> Marc.
>>
>>
> Marc, this sounds like a great way to accomplishes two things at once.
> It both simplifies the application for users,  while making the process
> more robust. I'm in support.
> 
> Nicholas

Hi Nicholas,

Now that Wily beta 2 is released, maybe we can do something along this
track again. How can I help now? Where and when can it be decided, that
Marc Deslauriers converts the SDC to a cloning tool?

I'm afraid it is too late for Wily, so that we are talking about the
neXt version to become 16.04 LTS(?)

Or is it possible to 'save' the SDC in Wily this way, to get something
that works when 15.10 is released?

-o-

Now (in the released Wily beta 2) there is another symptom, than when I
tested (reported in a spreadsheet a few days ago). I can reproduce Chris
Hermansen's symptom early at boot. The SDC no longer complains about
udisks. It finishes and seems successful, but the created pendrive does
not work:
-----
"A black screen white letters at the top:

SYSLINUX 6.03 EDD 20150813 Copyright (c) 1994-2014 H. Peter Anvin et al

Boot Error"
-----
I tested with 'the easiest case', that Wily tries to create a pendrive
with Wily of the same architecture (i386 --> i386). Chris tested with
amd64 (in 15.04), so the bug seems to affect both architectures.

I don't know if this bug is reported at Launchpad, if it should be
reported now, or if it is enough that we know about it here and now.

Best regards
Nio