Install breaks if filesystems are mounted on /media

[Antoni Gual]

The install stops with an "Installable kernel no
found" in the install base system section ,if vfat
units are mounted during manual partitioning.

If the vfat drives are not mounted, the error does
not occur

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Knowing the code, this seems like an unlikely reason for the failure. Can you
send /var/log/syslog from the failed installation, or provide some more details
(such as where the vfat filesystems were mounted)?

[Rob Quin (robquin)]

I have just spent most of the last 2 days trying to install Kubuntu and always ended up at an "installable kernel not found" message. I downloaded 3 different iso images - no luck. I tried making adjustments in my BIOS - no luck. After reading this report I started again but left the 3 FAT32 partitions unmounted when using the partitioning tool and the installation went like a dream.
I don't have /var/log/syslog from the failed installation but I can tell you where I mounted the FAT32 partitions.

/dev/hda1 was mounted on /windows
/dev/hde1 was mounted on /dos
/dev/hdf1 was mounted on /media

[Rob Quin (robquin)]

Sorry for the above post. Now that I've had a good look around and realised that ubuntu wants to mount the CDRoms on /media, it's obvious why the install didn't work but I didn't know that when I was staring at the installer screen.

[Chris Wagner (chris-wagner)]

So, can we safely say that the problem occurs when having something on mounted at /media? Have you tried an install to see if the problem might have been fixed, as of late? I guess that would be a bug; the installer should at least give a better description of why installation is failing. What do you think?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Mm, we probably ought to forbid mounting filesystems on /media (as opposed to a subdirectory), since the installer relies on being able to do stuff under that itself.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package partman-target - 58ubuntu2

---------------
partman-target (58ubuntu2) jaunty; urgency=low

  * /media must be on the root file system (although subdirectories may be
    mounted separately), since the installer relies on being able to mount
    things like /media/cdrom during installation. Check this (LP: #16871).
  * Expand comment above each UUID-mounted partition, based on a suggestion
    by Daniel Pocock in Debian #509378.
  * Add a note about 'vol_id --uuid' to the top of /etc/fstab; thanks to
    Chris Cheney for the suggestion (LP: #221474).

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:18:06 +0000