[ubuntu-uk] Special bugs, and Live CDs. Help with this Bug please?

[alan c]

On 12/11/10 11:33, Liam Proven wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Alan Pope<alan at popey.com>  wrote:
>>  On 12 November 2010 09:57, Liam Proven<lproven at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>  Yes, but *what* particular sequence? Nobody has yet spelled it out,
>>>  AFAICS. I'd like to know so I can avoid it!

>>  It's detailed in the bug report linked to in the first mail.

> OK, read that now, but I don't see what the specific unusual event
> here was meant to be. The only thing that sounds odd in there are the
> "3 unlisted hidden partitions". MBR only allows for a total of 4
> primary partitions, and 3 were listed there - Dell recovery, Windows&
> the extended one. Adding>1 new ones would cause problems.

Are you looking at a different bug? I do not see those words in bug 
#659106
(?)

> I am not following what is meant to have gone wrong. When one chooses
> "use entire partition", what do people /expect/ to happen if no
> specific partition is chosen?

The partition *is* in fact identified. It is identified by the 
installer during the early stages, although it is *not* nominated by 
the user. It is displayed as (for example) /dev/sda2 or whatever.

The partition which is the current target for resizing (and more) is 
clearly indicated by the installer. It is displayed in the legend in 
the gui (centre screen) as you are taken into the resize (gui with 
slider) display.  It is the partition which is about to be edited - 
resized, or whatever.

And it is this same actual display which also includes the two buttons 
(whole partition button, and whole drive button).

So the partitioner identifies a partition for amendment, in accord 
with users earlier choices.

Note that in this installer, the user does *not* nominate the 
partition to be resized/used, the installer itself takes this 
decision. It seems to choose the largest partition as suitable, which 
makes good sense for many newcomers.

The bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/659106

[extract]
=========================================
(test)
Use a single hard drive PC with disposable drive contents.
I used an Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop Live CD (32 bit in my case) md5 checked 
and also CD self checked ok.
I created two partitions on the drive, one NTFS and one ext4. It did 
not make much difference ultimately however I deliberately made one 
partition bigger than the other, using a number of size conditions.
I began the install process, chose 'Install alongside other operating 
systems'.

Then I chose the option button 'Use Entire Partition'
(note: I carefully deliberately avoided 'the whole drive')

I could see that the partitioner had identified a partition, and it 
was shown in the GUI display in a valid way (eg /dev/sda5) and I could 
also see the resizing option slider, which I did not use.

I was confident that 'Use Entire Partition' meant what it said, I 
proceeded.
===========================================

I would guess that it is simply a case that some code in this 
installer option is not quite fully functional. The bug originator 
looked into the partition table and saw anomalies, however as a less 
expert victim all I saw was a trashed DRIVE.

Note:
I confirm comments elsewhere  that the other installer options seem to 
work perfectly well, including the partition resizing, which is of 
course the action which almost all newcomers will want to use.

-- 
alan cocks
Ubuntu user