the follwoing is a follow up to a discussion with cjwatson on #ubuntu-installer --------------------------------------------
fresh boot from flash drive or DVD swap is mounted no other partitions are mounted partman is not running/hung Start Install select English [continue] [x] Install this third party software [continue] At this point partman is launched. result: partman.failed.r2.txt ======================== Analysis: Fundamentally there are multiple seperate bugs here, and they all interact to create the very erratic behavior that has been widely observed. The primary issue is that if partman fails for any reason, then instead of exiting, it hangs. When the installer gets run again, it will start a new partman process, the new partman process will also hang because of the existance of the previously hung partman process. This will occur even if the original error condition has been cleared. By starting the installer multiple times, you will get multiple hung partman processes, one for each invocation. The presence of any hung partman process will cause the new partman process to hang. This accounts for a lot of the erratic behavior that people are seeing. Partman has two modes. The first mode is that it requires the partitons to be unmounted. The second mode is that it will ignore(allow) the fact that partitions are mounted. When partman is initially invoked, it checks to see if there are any partitions mounted. If it finds any mounted partitions, it prompts the user to see if they would like to unmount the partitons or to ignore the fact that the partitions are mounted. For mode one, partman will attempt to unmount the mounted partitions. If for any reason -- such as a file that is in use -- that partman fails to unmount the partitons, then partman will hang. Once partman is hung, the behavior is as described above. For mode two, if the user chooses to continue while allowing the partitons to remain mounted, then partman will work as expected. This is why users are able to coax partman into working by both having a mounted partiton and by telling partman to ignore the mounted partitions. now for the tricky bug... if the swap file is mounted, partman does not prompt the user about the fact that it is mounted. Neither does partman attempt to unmount the swap partition. Instead partman will hang when it later realizes that the swap partiton is mounted. If on the other hand, another partition is mounted, then partman will prompt as above, and if the user chooses to ignore the mounted partitions, then partman will also ignore the mounted swap partition. This is the crux of the observed erratic behavior. Once partman decides to ignore the swap it will function as expected. Partman will work if the swap partition is not mounted and no other partition is mounted. Partman will also work if the swap partiton is mounted and at least one other partition is mounted... which causes partman to prompt about the partitions, AND the user chooses to ignore them. In all other scenarios partman will fail. Summary: Partman fails to turn off the swap file. Partman fails to prompt the user about the presence of the swap file. Partman can fail to unmount a partiton that is in use, after prompting the user. Any failure will cause partman to hang. Once partman is hung, it stays hung even after quiting the installer. The presence of a hung partman process will cause subsequent install attempts to also fail. They must either be killed manually or the computer rebooted. It may be that under some circuimstances, partman does succeed in turning off the swap file, or for some other reason the swap file is not activated. When this happens then partman works as expected. =========================== When partman is hung, it looks like this: root 8364 0.0 0.0 6436 396 ? S 03:35 0:00 log-output -t ubiquity --pass-stdout sh -c /usr/share/ubiquity/activate-dmraid && /bin/partman root 8365 0.0 0.0 4440 624 ? S 03:35 0:00 sh -c /usr/share/ubiquity/activate-dmraid && /bin/partman root 8371 0.0 0.0 4572 892 ? S 03:35 0:00 /bin/sh /bin/partman root 8496 0.1 0.0 24628 1112 ? S 03:35 0:00 parted_server root 9485 0.0 0.0 4572 880 ? S 03:35 0:00 /bin/sh /lib/partman/display.d/10initial_auto root 10634 0.0 0.0 4572 592 ? S 03:36 0:00 /bin/sh /lib/partman/display.d/10initial_auto root 10730 0.0 0.0 4572 896 ? S 03:36 0:00 /bin/sh /lib/partman/automatically_partition/15reuse/choices ============================ ** Attachment added: "partman log of failure when swap file is active" https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1080701/+attachment/3619695/+files/partman.failed.r2a.txt -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Kubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to ubiquity in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1080701 Title: After 'Preparing to install Ubuntu' screen, raring installation hangs To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1080701/+subscriptions -- kubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/kubuntu-bugs
