Full-disk install creates very small extended partition for swap

[Jeremy Bícha]

Tested on the Ubuntu 11.10 Alpha 3 test CD today. I tried the full disk install on my 10 GB partition in VirtualBox. While doing the post-installation ISO tests, I was surprised to see this result:

$ sudo sfdisk -l -uM

Disk /dev/sda: 1305 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary.
DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently.
Units = mebibytes of 1048576 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0

   Device Boot Start End MiB #blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 9339 9339 9563136 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 9340+ 10238 899- 919553 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/sda4 0 - 0 0 0 Empty
/dev/sda5 9341 10238 898 919552 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Ubuntu installed to partition 1 and then created a small extended partition just big enough for 900 MB of swap. That seems like a big waste for an extended partition. Ubuntu should either not bother with creating an extended partition in this case (my preference) or make better use of that space.

Personally, when I install manually, I create a very small regular partition for the Windows bootloader to use and then use the rest as logical partitions inside a massive extended partition.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: ubiquity (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-7.9-generic 3.0.0
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-7-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Aug 2 17:38:45 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Alpha i386 (20110802.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I was able to recreate this using the alternate i386 CD from 20110802.1.

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This issue has sat incomplete for more than 60 days now. I'm going to close it as invalid. Please feel free re-open if this is still an issue for you. Thank you.