12.04 installation in VirtualBox crashed due to weird partitioning layout ("No space left on device")

[Hernando Torque]

Installed the 03-Dec-2011 daily live image (using erase all and use whole disk) and got a crash near the end of the installation (100% reproducible).

The logs mention "No space left on device" a couple of times, though the target disk had plenty of free space left (I tested this with VirtualBox' dynamically growing virtual HDD as well as with the static full-sized HDD).

ProblemType: BugDistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: ubiquity 2.9.5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-2.6-generic 3.2.0-rc3
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-2-generic i686
ApportVersion: 1.90-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
CasperVersion: 1.292
Date: Sat Dec 3 19:42:11 2011
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Alpha i386 (20111203)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Exception during installation:
Dec 3 18:42:07 ubuntu plugininstall.py: SystemError: E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
Dec 3 18:42:07 ubuntu plugininstall.py:

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

I noticed this rather weird partitioning layout which explains the disk space warnings and the crash.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 220961, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Please continue to report any other bugs you may find.

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

apport information

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

apport information

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

apport information

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

apport information

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

apport information

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

apport information

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

Sorry, used wrong bug number in apport-collect. :-(

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

Still an issue. Used the daily live CD (05-Feb-2012).

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Which particular Live CD are you using? Do you happen to know how you ended up with a separate /home partition? I don't think that should happen by default in the installer.

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

It's a default Ubuntu CD, i386. I start with an empty virtual hard disk (8 GiB in size).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ubiquity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[CatchesAStar (catchesastar)]

Are you saying that you chose the option in the picture attached?

The dynamically expanding option does not mean that the partition will expand (i.e. beyond 8GB) when the disk is full. It simply means that the disk will begin at, for example, 1GB, and will expand to 8GB as more space is used.

Furthermore, the GParted screenshot just comfirms that the root partition is running out of space (i.e. 19.60MB left)

-Sandy

[CatchesAStar (catchesastar)]

EDIT: that should be "It simply means that the space allocated on the disk will begin at, for example 1GB..."

[Hernando Torque (htorque)]

As far as I can see, this is not a duplicate. It's crashing without notifying me of the underlying problem, yes. However, the real problem here is, that the installer is creating a crazy partition layout with a way too small root parition when there is plenty of disk space to start with.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 220961, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Please continue to report any other bugs you may find.