Rebooted box & tested again on
dell [optiplex] 745 (c2d-6600, 6gb, amd/ati radeon rv516/x1300/x1550)

(Before booting I checked BIOS, floppy is set to 'internal' for box; box has no floppy drive though.  Maybe a change to 'disabled' would cause this hang to not occur)

only KDE partition manager was loaded, it appeared the same result (it paused) so I went to other room to report findings in iso.qa.ubu, when I got back kde partition manager was busy waiting.

Found in `dmesg` is 
[  127.478906] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
[  127.478912] floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
[  165.636346] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
[  165.636352] floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
[  203.949342] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
[  203.949348] floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
[  242.091826] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
[  242.091832] floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
[  280.238087] blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
[  280.238093] floppy: error 10 while reading block 0

What I think of as useful (line or two extra) from `journalctl`
Aug 04 05:40:02 lubuntu systemd[1293]: Starting Virtual filesystem metadata service...
Aug 04 05:40:02 lubuntu dbus-daemon[1379]: [session uid=999 pid=1379] Successfully activated service 'org.gtk.vfs.Metadata'
Aug 04 05:40:02 lubuntu systemd[1293]: Started Virtual filesystem metadata service.
Aug 04 05:40:02 lubuntu dbus-daemon[1059]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.UPower'
Aug 04 05:40:02 lubuntu systemd[1]: Started Daemon for power management.
Aug 04 05:40:02 lubuntu ofonod[1078]: enum_devices_reply: no battery detected
Aug 04 05:40:02 lubuntu dbus-daemon[1059]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.UDisks2' unit='udisks2.service' requested by ':1.41' (uid=999 pid=1652 comm="/usr/bin/lxqt-panel " label="unconfined")
Aug 04 05:40:06 lubuntu kernel: blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
Aug 04 05:40:06 lubuntu kernel: floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
Aug 04 05:40:20 lubuntu NetworkManager[1060]: <warn>  [1596519620.6199] dhcp6 (enp3s0): request timed out
Aug 04 05:40:20 lubuntu NetworkManager[1060]: <info>  [1596519620.6200] dhcp6 (enp3s0): state changed unknown -> timeout
Aug 04 05:40:27 lubuntu dbus-daemon[1059]: [system] Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.UDisks2': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)
Aug 04 05:40:30 lubuntu systemd-udevd[999]: fd0: Worker [1015] processing SEQNUM=3315 is taking a long time
Aug 04 05:40:44 lubuntu kernel: blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
Aug 04 05:40:44 lubuntu kernel: floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
Aug 04 05:40:56 lubuntu systemd[1]: udisks2.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
Aug 04 05:40:57 lubuntu dbus-daemon[1059]: [system] Activating service name='org.kde.kpmcore.externalcommand' requested by ':1.46' (uid=999 pid=1815 comm="/usr/bin/partitionmanager " label="unconfined") (using servicehelper)
Aug 04 05:40:57 lubuntu dbus-daemon[1059]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.kde.kpmcore.externalcommand'
Aug 04 05:41:23 lubuntu kernel: blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
Aug 04 05:41:23 lubuntu kernel: floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
Aug 04 05:42:01 lubuntu kernel: blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
Aug 04 05:42:01 lubuntu kernel: floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
Aug 04 05:42:27 lubuntu systemd[1]: udisks2.service: State 'stop-sigterm' timed out. Killing.
Aug 04 05:42:27 lubuntu systemd[1]: udisks2.service: Killing process 1096 (udisksd) with signal SIGKILL.
Aug 04 05:42:27 lubuntu systemd[1]: udisks2.service: Killing process 1111 (gmain) with signal SIGKILL.
Aug 04 05:42:27 lubuntu systemd[1]: udisks2.service: Killing process 1138 (gdbus) with signal SIGKILL.
Aug 04 05:42:27 lubuntu systemd[1]: udisks2.service: Killing process 1176 (probing-thread) with signal SIGKILL.
Aug 04 05:42:39 lubuntu kernel: blk_update_request: I/O error, dev fd0, sector 0 op 0x0:(READ) flags 0x0 phys_seg 1 prio class 0
Aug 04 05:42:39 lubuntu kernel: floppy: error 10 while reading block 0
Aug 04 05:42:39 lubuntu systemd[1]: udisks2.service: Main process exited, code=killed, status=9/KILL
Aug 04 05:42:39 lubuntu systemd[1]: udisks2.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
Aug 04 05:42:39 lubuntu systemd[1]: Failed to start Disk Manager.
Aug 04 05:42:39 lubuntu systemd[1]: Reached target Graphical Interface.
Aug 04 05:42:39 lubuntu systemd[1]: Starting Update UTMP about System Runlevel Changes...
Aug 04 05:42:39 lubuntu systemd[1]: systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service: Succeeded.
Aug 04 05:42:39 lubuntu systemd[1]: Finished Update UTMP about System Runlevel Changes.
Aug 04 05:42:39 lubuntu systemd[1]: Startup finished in 1min 25.442s (kernel) + 3min 14.488s (userspace) = 4min 39.931s.
Aug 04 05:47:02 lubuntu rtkit-daemon[1392]: Supervising 2 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Aug 04 05:47:02 lubuntu rtkit-daemon[1392]: Supervising 2 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.
Aug 04 05:47:02 lubuntu rtkit-daemon[1392]: Supervising 2 threads of 1 processes of 1 users.

There is no floppy drive, but BIOS is reporting one? and thus it waits until timeout??
Would people really want KDE Partition Manager to partition floppies??  (maybe yes, a gui way to format)