'No root filesystem is defined' error even though root fileystem has been defined

[Guy Thouret]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

Using the latest jaunty-desktop-amd64.iso from about a week ago.
Trying to install from the live CD environment I chose manual partitioning setup, selected a blank preformatted partition for my root partition (/dev/sda7) and an existing ext2 boot partition (/dev/sda2), when I tried to go to the next step I got an error saying "No root filesystem is defined".
You can clearly see on the attached screenshot that a root filesystem was defined.

After some fiddling about:
* Deleting and recreating the root partition
* Choosing ext3 instead of ext4 for the root partition
* Selecting option for partitioner to format the partition, not selecting it and formatting myself

I still got the error. I used apt-get to upgrade to the latest version of ubiquity and still got the same error.

I finally got it to install by not selecting the boot partition, installing everything on the root partition (/dev/sda7).

I have attached partman and syslog from /var/log/installer and also a screenshot showing the error message.
(The logs may be fairly long due to all of the methods tried to get this installed)

I do have an unusual partitioning scheme on the disk at present with partition numbers that do not represent the physical order on the disk!
An intersting point to note from the partman log is that it sees the blank space between /dev/sda7 and /dev/sda5 as /dev/sda-1, i.e. a partition id of -1.

[LumpyCustard (orangelumpycustard)]

I too have this problem when running the live CD. Pretty much the same as your setup. ntfs as the first partition and a range of others, some ext4, one other ext3.

Testing now to see if I go straight to 'Install on the boot menu instead of 'run without changing settings...'

[Guy Thouret (guy-thouret)]

I tried that also and it was exactly the same.

IIRC I finally got it to install by only selecting the one partition as / and not also selecting the boot partition, then manually moving kernel to the boot partition and editing /etc/fstab.

[LumpyCustard (orangelumpycustard)]

This seems to have been fixed for alpha-6.

Can others confirm?

[arky (arky)]

Tested on Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Alpha i386 (20090911). The get the same error "No root filesystem is defined" right after I select advanced partitioning

[arky (arky)]

On Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Alpha i386 (20090911) the manual partitioning page doesn't show up like in bug
427875

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Problems with karmic are almost certainly different bugs; in general I would rather that people did not try to identify installer bugs as duplicates unless they're experts in analysing installer logs, since it often just confuses everyone.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

(A "partition" numbered -1 is normal partman-speak for free space.)

While the symptoms were quite different, the underlying cause of this bug was the same as in bug 317435. I fixed that in late February, and it indeed has no relation to any similar-looking bugs filed in Karmic.