install-to-unclean-target warning broken by partman-target clear_partitions

[Carl Karsten]

trying to install from the 8.4.1 alt cd, - it is erroring: log shows Cannot find /lib/modules/2.6.26-4-generic

attached is log plus tar of a buch of stuff

one thing that is slightly off normal: I am installing to a partition that has the /home/ dir from a previous install. it didn't get to asking me for a username, so I am not sure why that would matter.

Carl K

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. I have classified this bug as a bug in debian-installer.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

This is because you're installing over an existing system without formatting, which doesn't always quite work right with the alternate installer.

Unfortunately, the clear_partitions feature in partman-target removed /bin/sh (as expected) which is what base-installer uses as its key to warn you about the known problems when installing to an unclean target. I think we need to have base-installer produce its warning earlier, perhaps in a partman check.d script, to avoid this problem.