Can I install Warty in existing partitions and avoid 1566?

[Daniel Robitaille]

> I really don't want to mess up my partition table.  Can I use
> a reliable system using a 2.4.x kernel to create and format
> the / and swap partitions and then install Ubuntu Warty
> without having it reformat the partitions (and re-write the
> partition table)?  The install document is a bit brief.  I have
> had installers occasionally suprise me... :-(
>
> Do the / and swap partitions have to be primary partitions?
> (I hope not...)

what you possibly want is:
 http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/manual/en.i386/apcs04.html
"Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/Linux System"

you will have to adapt that manual to Ubuntu, but it relatively straighforward.
I did it on one of my machine (from a Fedora install), and it was
relatively painless.