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

[Mark]

I wanted to install Lubuntu 12.10 to a 4GB USB flash drive, but  the
12.10 installer refuses to work if the disk size is less than 4.4GB.
That's a problem because Lubuntu would actually install fine on a 4GB
USB drive, especially if the user chooses to not create a swap
partition. But the installer doesn't let the user get past the "I won't
install on a <4.4GB disk" stage.

It's perfectly feasible to install Lubuntu to a 4GB flash drive; there
would about 2GB free space after installation with no swap partition.

Some suggestions:
 - Reduce the minimum allowable disk size and make it a recommendation, not mandatory.
 - When working out whether the drive is large enough for Lubuntu to be installed, take into account the size of any swap partition. Perhaps show a warning dialog if the user proceeds with a small drive, but don't prevent installation completely.

Here are some space-used figures after I installed Lubuntu 12.10 to a
4.4GB VirtualBox VM:

Filesystem     1K-blocks    Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1        3766504 1911200   1663972  54% /

Device     Start        End   Blocks  Id  System
/dev/sda1     2048  7655423  3826688  83  Linux
/dev/sda2  7657470  9226239   784385   5  Extended
/dev/sda5  7657472  9226239   784384  82  Linux swap / Solaris

Note the swap size! With no swap partition there would be almost 2.5GB
of free space. There would therefore be over 2GB of free space after
installing to a 4GB USB stick/memory card, if the installer allowed it.
That's plenty for light usage.

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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:
  Won't Fix
Status in “ubiquity” source package in Precise:
  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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