Install aborts because of unwritable partition table, after Ubiquity reports that it doesn't need to edit the partition table

[boss_mc]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

After using unetbootin to create a bootable USB with Jaunty on it (in partition /dev/sdc1), I created a second partition (/dev/sdc2) on that USB to store the installed OS. Both partitions were Ext3 and were created before the ubiquity installer was started up. When I started ubiquity I told the installer to install Jaunty into sdc2, using that partition as ext3 and not formatting it, thus the installer should have no reason to touch the partitions, let alone the partition table of the drive.

After continuing to the end of the installer, and beginning the install, ubiquity failed, complaining that it needed to change the partition table of /cdrom (which is where it mounts the USB). There is no need as far as I can see for it to do this.

This prevents anyone from installing ubuntu from one partition of a drive to another, regardless of the drive involved, be it USB, SD or even straight HD as the partition table will never be accessible for editing while a partition is mounted and active (running the live disk).

[Carey Underwood (cwillu)]

This is still a problem in karmic as of alpha 3.

[Carey Underwood (cwillu)]

/lib/partman/commit.d/01unmount_busy has a comment at the top saying that it should be largely unnecessary, and that it's kept just as a safeguard. Disabling it makes the install continue normally.

Can this be disabled, or does somebody need to teach it to either ask the user for confirmation, or to duplicate the checks that ubiquity makes, based on the changes the user actually selected?

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

I believe this was fixed a few years ago by changes to libparted so that it will no longer fail to update the partition table when another partition on the disk is in use.