provide any feedback during time consuming dd invokation in ubiquity

[Karl-Philipp Richter]

Data is written to the swap partition with `dd`. Depending on the size of the swap partition and the speed of the HDD the process can take up to 30 or 60 (theoretically multiples of that). During that time there's no feedback for the user at all (the process is started in the background after entering user account details) and the installer seems hanging.

That leaves BTW a horrible first impression of Ubuntu...

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: ubiquity 2.21.17
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-10.10-generic 3.19.2
Uname: Linux 3.19.0-10-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.16.2-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.356
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Thu Apr 2 23:32:36 2015
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz.efi file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper quiet splash ---
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Beta amd64 (20150326)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

What makes you think that dd has anything to do with formatting swap? Swap is formatted with mkswap, which only has to write the header so it only takes a second.

[Karl-Philipp Richter (krichter722)]

I would overwrite the swap partition with zero (e.g. from `/dev/zero` which I would write on the future swap partition with `dd`). That seems to happen. The swap is created with `mkswap`, but the whole process involves a time consuming `dd` invocation during which the user has no idea what's going on. If there's no swap to be created that operation doesn't take place.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

If you run dd to zero the entire partition, that is on you. The installer does not do this for you. It just runs mkswap which runs practically instantly.

[Karl-Philipp Richter (krichter722)]

OK! -> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1440241

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

There's no need to file another bug. We just need a better description that can help us reproduce what you are seeing.

[Karl-Philipp Richter (krichter722)]

It seems unclear whether dd ought to be running at all or not (according to what you wrote above it doesn't), so we need to figure this out which is a separate issue from improving the feedback during its run (the issue about improving the feedback stays only valid if it turns out that `dd` is right to run). 2 issues -> 2 reports

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

It's one issue, you just might refine the description once you figure out what is really going on.

[Karl-Philipp Richter (krichter722)]

It's clear what's going on: `ubiquity` starts a `dd` process during swap creation and you say it shouldn't - so it's a bug which I filed as https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1440241. You insist that it's not a bug...

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

We'll need some evidence that this is going on and/or specific factors that trigger it to happen, since it doesn't happen for me. For instance, do you see this dd process in ps?