[Bug 775124] Re: Ubiquity should have a command line option to override the free space check

[Jonathan Marsden]

@lbsolost: You wrote:

> So, if I were using the Lubuntu live CD, and I tried installing to
> a 4GB drive with either an existing swap partition, or if it 
> were a blank drive (that is all free space), the installer would 
> presumably still fail ...

> If I'm mistaken please let me know.

OK... I think you are mistaken, at least in some cases :)  The Lubuntu
11.04 LiveCD, with the one file hacked so the "limit" value is smaller,
installs fine for me on a 3GB hard drive (virtual hard drive, in a VM).
I don't remember the RAM size I had on that VM, probably 256MB or 512MB.

The problem I have with the idea of "just make all the tests into
warnings" is that it could increase the number of unhelpful "bug
reports" when newcomers do impractical things on inadequate hardware,
and then blame Ubuntu!  I suspect that preventing this was probably
behind the "hard" limit for disk space that is currently implemented.

I am still very time limited, but will look into detecting the Ubuntu
"flavour" being installed, and using it to decide what the size limit
is, hopefully this weekend.  That could be a quick fix that needs no UI
changes, no extra files on the CD image, etc.  My current thinking would
be to use the current code for the "big boys" (Ubuntu and Kubuntu), and
use a "casper/filesystem.size + offset" approach for Lubuntu and
Xubuntu, with "offset" being of the order of 600MB.  Any other flavours
(new ones I don't know about?) should of course default to using the
"very safe" approach that is currently in place.

Anyone with comments/suggestions/reasons why this is a terrible idea,
please state them :)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/775124

Title:
  Ubiquity should have a command line option to override the free space
  check

Status in “ubiquity” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “ubiquity” source package in Oneiric:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: ubiquity

   I downloaded the 11.04 desktop i386 iso, put it on a usb drive so i
   could it install it on my netbook, but couldnt even get past the
   install screen, because it says i need 4.4GB to install ubuntu 11.04.
   The problem is that my hard drive is only 4GB large, a common size in
   netbooks.  I have run installers for ubuntu 10.10, 10.04, 9.10 and
   9.04 netbook editions on my netbook and never had a problem before.  I
   notice that 11.04 has netbook and desktop editions combined into a
   single ISO, so maybe that is why the error happened in 11.04 and not
   before.

   Also, I notice that the install footprint of 10.10 is around 2.1GB, so
   it shouldnt be a problem running 11.04 unless they truly added 2GB of
   junk to the OS.  The problem is I just can't get past the installer.

  [i am intentionally posting a duplicate of bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/772164 because i can't change the package of 
  bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/772164 to ubiquity from netbook]

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
  Package: ubiquity 2.6.10
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
  Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic i686
  Architecture: i386
  Date: Sun May  1 20:24:28 2011
  LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110427.1)
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=en_US:en
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SourcePackage: ubiquity
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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