Freeze at 5% "Creating ext3 file system"

[Stephan Shroder]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

I tried to install Kubuntu Desktop CD 8.04, the whole process went smoothly until the final installation step, when the system completely freezes at 5% "Creating ext3 file system". These are the facts:

- complete freeze, no mouse moves, no response on network pings, no log file retrieval
- tried several formatting options: manual, guided. All with same result
- exactly the same behaviour with Kubuntu Desktop CD 7.10
- sudo ubiquity --debug shows no error
- two P-ATA HDd, mixed NTFS, FAT32, ext3 file systems

Please - is there any way to skip the mandatory partitioning and formatting steps in ubiquity?
I can do this by hand, and really want to see Kubuntu on this system. I don't dare hoping this will get fixed any time soon, looking at all the past and present problems about this stage. Why not allowing us to skip these steps, jumping directly to the next step?

[Evan (ev)]

If you'd rather partition yourself outside of the installer, then your only option is to copy the contents of /rofs to your new root partition yourself or use the alternate CD installer. I do not believe there is a large enough use case to warrant adding a potentially confusing option to the UI to skip partitioning completely.

Regarding your bug, do you have a serial cable available? I suspect this is a kernel bug and thus will need the log you capture over a serial console up to the point where it freezes.

Thanks!

[Stephan Shroder (stevie022000)]

Hi Evan,

thanks for your response. Yes, I could look at the serial port. I did not yet work with the kernel debugger. So I'd need some guideline what do do at the console.
Also, thanks for the hint about manual copy from /rofs, that could do the trick. Furthermore, shame on me for not knowing about the "alternate" installer. It is somewhat hidden in the website-easy-download-glitz.

You are right about the confusing option - it could help bypass some problems but would not solve issues. Maybe we just have to accept that Ubuntu works perfectly on new systems, but has problems on few older and buggy hardware (I found one more). So I would not insist to dig into the issue further. If you think it makes sense to pursue the problem I could try the serial debugger.

[Jayson Rowe (jayson.rowe)]

Since it's been a very long time since any additional info was added to this bug, I'm just checking to see if this is still an issue, and find out what additional work should be done on this bug.

[ihturs (ihturs)]

Hi
I am an amateur user of Linux, and I faced the same problem of freeze at 5% . I tried downloading the installer from the internet and booted from pen drive, and tried the same from CD also. But I face the problem with both 8.10 and 9.04. Could you enlighten me on the "alternate" installer method in more layman terms? Is there some other fix or easy way out?

Though I've installed ubuntu couple of times on several desktops and Acer laptop, I've never faced any issue with partitioning. I am observing this problem for the first time on my HP Pavilion laptop. Does that mean the issue is specific to HP laptop hardware?

[Stephan Shroder (stevie022000)]

Hi,

I've given up on this one. My personal conclusion is that I don't use
Ubuntu on old hardware or on systems with many partitions. If you
install it on fresh laptotps with existing simple partition tables it
works fine. I don't think your problem is specific to the HP HW.

For "difficult" systems I stick with Debian - their installer is rock solid.

ihturs wrote:
> Hi
> I am an amateur user of Linux, and I faced the same problem of freeze at 5% . I tried downloading the installer from the internet and booted from pen drive, and tried the same from CD also. But I face the problem with both 8.10 and 9.04. Could you enlighten me on the "alternate" installer method in more layman terms? Is there some other fix or easy way out?
>
> Though I've installed ubuntu couple of times on several desktops and
> Acer laptop, I've never faced any issue with partitioning. I am
> observing this problem for the first time on my HP Pavilion laptop. Does
> that mean the issue is specific to HP laptop hardware?
>

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

For those who are interested, there are two images available to download. One image is the Desktop image, which everybody seems to have found. There is another cd image available, called the Alternate image. It has also been called a text installer, since it does not use the same graphics interface as the Desktop image.

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!