Karmic alternate installer partition disks menu empty of options

[bugbomb]

Binary package hint: debian-installer

Release: Ubuntu Karmic Alternate x86 Alpha 6 and subsequent daily images

Expected behavior: Partition disks dialogue in the installer presents partitioning choices.

Actual behavior: Partition disks dialogue only gives options to undo or finish. The text is as follows:

"This is an overview of your currently configured partitions and mount points. Select a partition to modify its settings (file system, mount point, etc.), a free space to create partitions, or a device to initialize its partition table.

Undo changes to partitions
Finish partitioning and write changes to disk

<Go Back>"

Selecting "Go Back" or "Undo changes" leads back to the same menu. Selecting "Finish partitioning and write changes" leads to this error:

"[!] Partition disks
No root file system
No root file system is defined.
Please correct this from the partitioning menu.
<Continue>"

Selecting "Continue" returns to the previous screen.

The hardware is an HP 2133 netbook. I am use the usb-creator application to convert CD iso files to bootable USB images and am booting from USB. This method has worked since Ubuntu Hardy and in every subsequent major release, as well as Karmic Alpha 3, 4, and 5 (I did not test with Alpha 1 or 2). (Partitioning works fine when using the desktop installer images written to USB the same way.) The alternate installer will boot from USB and run through the dialogues fine until it reaches the partition disks screen.

I first encountered this problem with Karmic Alpha 6. I've tried at least five daily builds from cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily with the same error.

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Update:

I have scrounged up a USB CD-ROM and have burned a disk of the 2009-09-29.2 alternate installer (the same one used off a thumb drive above).

Booting from the CD, the installer fails to detect disks, but at least it drops to the "Driver needed for your disk drive" dialogue.

Unfortunately, I do not know what driver is used, and Googling has not helped. I will boot off of a desktop install CD and see if I can determine the proper driver.

[bugbomb (bugbomb)]

Update:

Choosing "continue with no disk drive" at the "Detect disks" dialogue results in the partitioner giving the same menu as in my initial report. I still have not succeeded in determining which, if any, driver in the list to try. This is the output from lspci when the machine is booted with a Jaunty desktop image:

00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:00.1 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:00.2 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:00.3 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:00.4 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:00.5 PIC: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 I/O APIC Interrupt Controller
00:00.6 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Security Device
00:00.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237/VX700 PCI Bridge
00:02.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 PCI to PCI Bridge Controller (rev 80)
00:03.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 PCI to PCI Bridge Controller (rev 80)
00:0f.0 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. Device 5372
00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev b0)
00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev b0)
00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev b0)
00:10.4 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 90)
00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237S PCI to ISA Bridge
00:11.7 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8251 Ultra VLINK Controller
00:13.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A Host Bridge
00:13.1 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8237A PCI to PCI Bridge
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. CN896/VN896/P4M900 [Chrome 9 HC] (rev 01)
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11a/b/g (rev 02)
07:03.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5788 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03)
80:01.0 Audio device: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT1708/A [Azalia HDAC] (VIA High Definition Audio Controller) (rev 10)

Conclusions so far:

1) Alternate installer fails to detect internal disk drive starting with Karmic Alpha 6.

2) When booting from USB, no warning is given of the drive detection failure, resulting in a warning message from the partitioner instead.

As mentioned, this hardware has worked fine with the alternate installer for Hardy, Intrepid, Jaunty, and Karmic Alphas 3, 4, and 5.

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Tested today with the Karmic Beta, with the same result.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

This sounds awfully like bug 434827. We'll have a daily build in the not too distant future that will be worth testing ...

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Yes, reading over that, it does sound very much like the same bug. I didn't see that one when I was searching earlier, probably because I wasn't quite sure where to start searching. Thanks.

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RobPower's workaround for bug 434827 worked for this problem also. I'm marking this as a duplicate. Thank you, Colin, for notifying me of 434827, and thanks to RobPower for his workaround.