[Bug 1969822] Re: failed storage configuration at install of ubuntu-22.04-server

[Dan Bungert]

Thanks again for the logs Fernan, I now believe I understand what
happened.

About your item #1 ("starting with fresh disks")
It's our expectation that most people will, when faced with a blank disk or one they are reformatting, will use the "Add Partition" on the "Free Space" area under a disk to add one or more partitions.  It's also a good idea to proactively "Use as Boot device" from the menu on a disk to have more control over where that boot device ends up - the first time you add a partition to a disk, Subiquity will notice that nothing is setup for boot yet and try to help with that, which may or may not match your intentions.

The problem you ran into was using the "Format" option from the disk,
not the "Free Space" area.  "Format" on an empty disk results in an
obscure option to setup the disk for formatting and mounting directly,
without an partition table.  And given that when you dropped to a shell
you created partition tables, I'm guessing the direct format and mount
of the disks isn't what you had in mind.

About item #2 ("even after formatting the disks in the shell"), that one
is more challenging.  Subiquity is trying to prevent people from losing
data - maybe you're mounting a partition at "/" and it already has data
there - the install process is going to wipe out some of that!  When
Subiquity is in charge of creating the partitions starting from free
space, you can do this more simply (Free Space -> Add Partition ->
choose Format and Mount options).  To go back to a state of a blank disk
one can use the Disk -> Reformat option, which will reverse your steps
manually done on the command line but will also let the installer
clearly know that there isn't data on that disk that needs to be
preserved.

I completely agree that this is a User Experience issue and will keep
this bug around to investigate if we can do this better.  In particular
I think the Disk -> Format option is confusing.  In the meantime I hope
the above helps you to get your VM going.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1969822

Title:
  failed storage configuration at install of ubuntu-22.04-server

Status in subiquity:
  New
Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid

Bug description:
  when booting a new VM using the ubuntu-22.04-live-server-amd64.iso
  file (VMWare), and following the installer options, I went for a
  "Custom storage layout", because I had 3 disks and wanted to use disk1
  (/dev/sda) as main disk (mounted in /), disk2 (/dev/sdb) mounted under
  /var/lib, and disk3 (/dev/sdc) mounted under /srv.

  After formatting all devices and specifying mount points, the system
  does not allow me to move on, saying "To continue you need to: Select
  a boot disk

  However there is nothing I can do to select one! (the option to "Use
  As Boot Device" is greyed out).

  If I start again fresh and choose the first disk (/dev/sda) and
  instead of "Format" I go for "Use As Boot Device", the system (again)
  does not allow me to move on, saying "To continue you need to: Mount a
  filesystem at /" (now the option "Stop Using As Boot Device" is greyed
  out).

  Hence, in summary, this is very confusing. It is not clear what the
  installer expects (e.g. how to do things right), and there are no
  hints provided.

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