[confirmed ] Installer creats / too small to be useful

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HHH

[confirmed ] Installer creats / too small to be useful

Post by HHH »

Symptom:
Install side-by-side with an existing OS (SUSE in my case)
Reboot & login with administrators Username & Password
Black screen (with a movable cursor) & access to other ttys Ctrl-Alt F2

What's actually wrong:
The / directory is full because the installer created too small a directory

Worked example:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=33949

Searching the forum(s) shows several/many have experienced this issue and there does not seem to be a succinct explanation or direction on how to deal with it.

Suggestion:
Fix the Mint 7 installer so that this does not happen
Provide a hint for the hapless user so that when they are caught, they can find a/the workaround

Did I see somewhere that the Version 8 installer was going to be different from the V7 installer? If not, then REALLY check that this issue is NOT perpetuated.

HTH
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
DrHu

Re: Installer creats / too small to be useful - Black Screen

Post by DrHu »

HHH wrote:Provide a hint for the hapless user so that when they are caught, they can find a/the workaround
I looked at your links, and Lauchpad, I don't know if it is a bug or not, if it is then a launchpad entry seems to be the place to set the problem..

Maybe an explanation of partitioning might be in order, but the Linux Mint user guide does seem to provide enough information
--or one could check Ubuntu 9.04 (the basis of Mint 7) or maybe Mepis 8, which has a pretty good user guide; just enough information to get going..

I am not sure an installer program should attempt to fix that
--even though I already had a windows partition and installed side-by-side, I had no problem with / being too small for Linux Mint 7 (gloria) main edition, it used the free space/partition available: except I had 2 hard drives, one for windows and one for Linux

I would guess that the free space available to the next OS to install is small, and that the user has made no provision for partitioning
--perhaps that is something few are used to doing, being that they tend to buy pre-packaged systems with the OS already installed, and usually taking up the whole hard drive in however many partiyions (hidden or visible) the manufacturer has created

I doubt anyone wants an OS to automatically repartition their system and the current installed OS's
-- no matter how automatic it might seem, what happens when the partitioning doesn't work, and nothing boots.
HHH

Re: Installer creats / too small to be useful - Black Screen

Post by HHH »

Thanks for the reply.
The type of hint I had in mind was an error/failed notice in, say, tty1.

I undertook the Mint install a a naive (dumb) user.

The installer offered to place the new installation of Mint side-by-side with my existing SuSE installation.

This was done without reference to Mint, nor Ubuntu manuals etc...

My impression of what the installer was offering was analogous to what a Windows Program installer offers.

I realise that this may be a little provocative but if it looks like a duck and it sounds like a duck...

I would have been happy (happier that I turned out to be) to install into partitions that I had already created on a newly installed drive but the offer to install side-by-side and be able to select one OS or the other sounded too good to be true. :oops:

PS. The extended partition (the Mint installer created) was 2.5Gb and was something like 97% full. There was more than 100Bg unused space on the HDD. If the installer had made the partition an order of magnitude larger then everything would have been uneventful.
emorrp1

Re: Installer creats / too small to be useful - Black Screen

Post by emorrp1 »

Thank you for reporting it, but it has already been reported, see: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubiquity/+bug/426739 and http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=32451
HHH

Re: Installer creats / too small to be useful - Black Screen

Post by HHH »

Thanks for that info. YES that's it exactly.

I had looked for similar issues in the Mint Forums but had not thought to have a look at Launchpad. Is there a suggestion, in the stickies, to have a look at Launchpad? I don't remember seeing one.
emorrp1

Re: Installer creats / too small to be useful - Black Screen

Post by emorrp1 »

well, at the top of the Bugs in Gloria forum, there's a sticky titled How to report bugs in Gloria that mentions launchpad. The forum rules (which appear for each new post) also direct you to read it. Additionally the Get Involved page on the website directs you to launchpad. Don't worry though, you did post a good bug report, so please report any more you notice.
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