Installation: "Prepare disk space" w/ 4 disks = missing "Quit", "Back", and "Forward" buttons

Asked by Kevin Rolfes

Binary package hint: ubiquity

This was encountered during an attempted installation of Jaunty Alpha 3 from

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/jaunty/alpha-3/jaunty-desktop-amd64.iso

This computer has four disk drives. When the installation reaches step 5
("Prepare disk space"), the number of disks causes the navigation buttons
"Quit", "Back", and "Forward" to disappear off the bottom of the screen.

To reproduce:

1. Boot from the CD
2. Select language (English in my case), followed by "Install Ubuntu"
3. Read pre-release warning, click Forward
    -- This is "Step 1 of 8"
4. Select language (again, English in my case), click Forward
    -- This is also "Step 1 of 8"
5. Select time zone city (Chicago in my case), click Forward
    -- This is now "Step 3 of 8"; perhaps the last step is numbered incorrectly?
6. Select keyboard layout (default, USA in my case), click Forward
    -- This is "Step 4 of 8"
7. Stare at the "busy" mouse pointer for about five minutes. (!)
8. You are now at the screen titled "Prepare disk space." Note that the
"Quit", "Back", and "Forward" buttons are already half obscured at the
bottom of the screen.
9. Select "Guided - use entire disk." This introduces a new line and the
navigation buttons are no longer visible at all.

This is probably more detail than necessary, but here's a textual
representation of what the installer shows at this point:

Prepare disk space
-----------------------------------------------
How do you want to partition the disk?

Before: (picture)

After: (picture)

o Guided - resize SCSI3 (0,0,0) , partition #1 (sdc) and use freed space
    New partition size: (grayed out boxes here)

o Guided - use entire disk
    o SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 640.1 GB ATA WDC WD6400AAKS-2
       (warning) This will delete Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and replace it with Ubuntu 9.04.
    o SCSI2 (0,0,0) (sdb) - 500.1 GB ATA WDC WD5000AAKS-2
    o SCSI3 (0,0,0) (sdc) - 320.1 GB ATA MAXTOR STM332062
    o SCSI3 (0,1,0) (sdd) - 203.9 GB ATA Maxtor 6B200P0

o Guided - use the largest continuous free space

o Manual

(horizontal line)

If I press Alt-B to go back to the keyboard layout, the window is not
resized smaller and the nagivation buttons are still invisible. There does
not seem to be a way to resize the window smaller in the vertical
direction; grabbing the top edge of the window and dragging it downward
has no effect.

Incidentally, in the drop down options for the installer window, there is
an option "Move to Workspace Right". That doesn't seem particularly
helpful (the window vanishes and I don't know how to get it back). :-)

If it matters, the computer is an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ / 1GB / ECS
C51G-M754 using the on-board GeForce 6100 graphics.

Best regards,
Kevin

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Answered
For:
Ubuntu ubiquity Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
Colin Watson (cjwatson) said :
#1

We'd probably better introduce a scrolled window here.

Could you file a separate bug about the "Move to Workspace Right" option? I'd like to suppress that, but I don't know if it's possible with current window manager facilities.

Revision history for this message
Kevin Rolfes (kevin-rolfes) said :
#2

"Move to Workspace Right" filed as bug #321212.

Best regards,
Kevin

Revision history for this message
Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik) said :
#3

I get the same problem installing in VirtualBox with 9 disks attached and a 800x600 windows (an extreme case for installer testing day). Screenshot attached.

Perhaps this could be solved by replacing the second tier radio buttons used to select the actual disk with a drop-down. The warning could appear once you've actually made a selection with an associated warning.

Revision history for this message
riban (brian-riban) said :
#4

Similar issue. When installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix to a Samsung NC10 (1024x600 TFT) from the Jaunty image (jaunty-netbook-remix-i386.img 21-Apr-2009 02:31) on a USB memory stick, I get to "Prepare disk space" and the Next button disappears. The window is wider than the available screen (pushing right end off screen, including Next button). Back button does not resize application. Unmaximize (sic) allows Alt+left click to drag window and see rest of display. Maximize (sic) does not re-dock application with maximus.

Revision history for this message
Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas) said :
#5

There is a similar bug #364617 - the width of Ubiquity's window increases too much in partitioning step if computer has other operating system(s) installed. That bug is because of text "This will delete ${SYSTEMS} and install ${RELEASE}." (debconf template ubiquity/text/part_format_warning). ${SYSTEMS} is often very long text, especially in notebook computers with "recovery partition", where is one more "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" or "Windows Vista (loader)" installed.
 When you will fix this bug, please also fix bug #364617

Revision history for this message
bim (mng-kingston) said :
#6

When moving to Prepare Disk Space, and 9.04 remix finds "This computer has Ubuntu 9.04 on it"
why is there no option to replace the existing 9.04 (which has become corrupted) with a new one
in the same location?

Also, How is that little white slider supposed to work? It is in sda3, and will not move to sda4.
When I select that option, (or anything other than having two Ubuntus), such as to specify manually,
the white slider disappears!

Revision history for this message
Colin Watson (cjwatson) said :
#7

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 05:49:09PM -0000, bim wrote:
> When moving to Prepare Disk Space, and 9.04 remix finds "This computer
> has Ubuntu 9.04 on it" why is there no option to replace the existing
> 9.04 (which has become corrupted) with a new one in the same location?

We don't have a neatly-packaged option for every scenario (it would get
even more cluttered than it already is ...), but you can select manual
partitioning to do this.

Can you help with this problem?

Provide an answer of your own, or ask Kevin Rolfes for more information if necessary.

To post a message you must log in.