jaunty max value in manual partitioner does nothing

[jtholmes]

Kubuntu Alt CD 9.04RC 4.15.9
This is debian-installer cannot use ubuntu-bug
logs for partman and syslog are attached

Steps to reproduce problem

start up kubuntu alt cd
get to partitioning steps
select manual partitioning
select partition #3 of /dev/sda
press enter
(you are editing partition #3 displays ...)

highlight Use as:
press enter
select ext3

highlight Format Partition
press enter
Format partiton set to 'Yes format ...'

highlight bootable flag
press enter
bootable flag changes to on

highlight resize partition
press enter
(warning displays about not being unable to undo etc...)
Asks 'Write previous changes to disk and continue?'
Use tab key and Select Yes
press enter
minimum size imformation displays, tells about 'max' etc.
clear value in New size partition dialog box
enter 'max' (no quotes) in the New size partition dialog box
press enter
installer goes away for a while then prints
something similar to the following
   creating filesystem in partition #3 (0,0,0) (sda) ...
   then prints something similar to the following
   checking filesystem in partition #3 ...

installer goes away for a while then prints the following

   Error informing the kernel about modifications to partition /dev/sda5
   -- Device or resource busy. This means Linux won't know about any
   changes you made to /dev/sda5 until you reboot -- so you shouldn't
   mount it or use it in any way before rebooting.

   Selections for this action are
     Ignore
     Cancel
    <Go Back>

    Select Ignore

Takes you back to the start of 'manual partitioning'
and the cycle starts all over again.

The problem(s) here are
- The installer says it is creating the partition (actaully
  it should be resizing/splitting /dev/sda3 into two partitions)
  and never does
- An error message talks about mods to /dev/sda5 which was not
  the partition selected to be altered and /dev/sda5 remains as it was
- You should end up with a resized /dev/sda3 and a new /dev/sdaN
  because of the resizing and neither occurs and /dev/sda3 stays
  it's original size

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

You have misunderstood what "Resize partition" in this context means. It doesn't mean "resize this partition and use the free space for an Ubuntu installation"; it literally just means "resize this partition to the size I want", nothing more. You're in manual partitioning; it won't create partitions until you explicitly tell it to do so. The partition you asked to resize was already the maximum size it could be, according to the logs, so it isn't surprising that attempting to resize it to "max" did nothing useful.

I don't know why you got that strange error about /dev/sda5. Did you have any filesystems mounted?

The only things I think are bugs here are:
 * whatever's going on with /dev/sda5, maybe
 * the fact that partman bothered to try to resize the partition at all rather than just saying "it's already the size you asked for"

[jtholmes (jtholmes)]

cjwatson
Your right I did misunderstand what 'Resize partiton' meant in that context.

As for /dev/sda5.
I usually sfdisk the drive before attempting any installs.
I am relatively sure that sda5 should have been an empty
partition.

I will rerun the test resize sda3 (smaller) and see what happens.

[jtholmes (jtholmes)]

Reran test

Before I reran the test i did the following
- removed sdb so only one drive present which was /dev/sda
- sfdisk'd /dev/sda with 10 partitions of various sizes with partition #10 being the largest
- /dev/sda5 only had empty filesystem on it when the installation started

Reran the test and the resizing worked however I got this message
Several times during the resize process and each time I selected 'Ignore'

Error informing the kernel about modifications to partition /dev/sda5
   -- Device or resource busy. This means Linux won't know about any
   changes you made to /dev/sda5 until you reboot -- so you shouldn't
   mount it or use it in any way before rebooting.

The installer chose partiton #10 to resize so I dont understand where /dev/sda5 comes into the mix
partman created partitions #11 and #12
partition #11 for linux and partition #12 for swap

The resizing worked fine and the installation continued on successfully

I attached syslog and partman logs

[jtholmes (jtholmes)]

Just checked Ubuntu Alt CD installation and it has the
exact same problem complains about /dev/sda5 but does
the repartitioning and continues the installation.