Resize and reuse options are not offered with full disk LVM installs

[Ron Mitchell]

System is a MacBook Intel Core Duo - 2.4 Ghz - 4 Gig of RAM - 250 Gig Hard Drive.
Was attempting to perform Test Case uri-001 - on Lubuntu 12.10 build of Aug 21 2012
Previously installed System was Fedora 14
According to the Test Case procedure under the heading, "Allocate drive space", the installer is supposed to offer a choice of installing Lubuntu alongside the previous system.

Instead it offered me the following choices:

Replace Fedora 14 with Lubuntu
Something else

It should be noted that this was my second attempt at performing this procedure. During the first attempt (see comment under bug #1034954), the aim was to partition available hard drive space between the previously installed system - Lubuntu 12.10 build of August 14 2012 and the system being installed from Live Desktop Disk - Lubuntu 12.10 build of August 21 2012. A crash occurred at the same point as referred to in that bug report. I added my comment.

As suggested by Mr. Ledkovs (comment 9 under bug report #1034954), after booting the live install CD, I opened a terminal and ran Ubiquity from there.

Thinking that perhaps the two systems were too much alike to be installed together, I decided to replace the previous system with something else (Fedora 14).

That seems to have led to somewhat inconsistent behaviour from Ubiquity at this point in the Test Case.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: ubiquity (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-9.9-generic 3.5.0
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-9-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.4-0ubuntu6
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Aug 23 19:10:29 2012
InstallCmdLine: file=/cdrom/preseed/lubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash --
InstallationMedia: Lubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Alpha amd64+mac (20120813)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

This is inconsistent behaviour. It should be possible to install fedora & ubuntu along side each other.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Ron, where is this "uri-001" test case? In a Web search for "uri-001 ubiquity" I can find only bug reports. As far as I know, the basic partitioner has only ever offered "Install X alongside Y" where Y was Windows or Ubuntu, not other operating systems.

Anyway, I have now updated the specification for that step, so that wherever it previously special-cased "Windows", it now allows any other OS, such as Fedora. The only exception is the "Install Ubuntu inside Windows" option (restarting into Wubi). <https://docs.google.com/a/canonical.com/document/d/1bZ4yQIVgGaUGSYu3qiUHnQt3ieBZoqunP_DcleHCr3I/edit#heading=h.01821049dcce>

Of course specifying it is one thing, but implementing it will be much harder.

[Ron Mitchell (rm2892)]

Looks like it has been re-numbered.

You can find it at:

http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/testcases/1301/info

Ron Mitchell

On Thu, 20 Sep 2012 12:20:20 -0000
Matthew Paul Thomas <email address hidden> wrote:

> Ron, where is this "uri-001" test case? In a Web search for "uri-001
> ubiquity" I can find only bug reports. As far as I know, the basic
> partitioner has only ever offered "Install X alongside Y" where Y was
> Windows or Ubuntu, not other operating systems.
>
> Anyway, I have now updated the specification for that step, so that
> wherever it previously special-cased "Windows", it now allows any other
> OS, such as Fedora. The only exception is the "Install Ubuntu inside
> Windows" option (restarting into Wubi).
> <https://docs.google.com/a/canonical.com/document/d/1bZ4yQIVgGaUGSYu3qiUHnQt3ieBZoqunP_DcleHCr3I/edit#heading=h.01821049dcce>
>
> Of course specifying it is one thing, but implementing it will be much
> harder.
>
> ** Changed in: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
> Status: Confirmed => Triaged
>
> ** Summary changed:
>
> - Test Case uri-001 Ubiquity Resize Install - Resizing partition choice not available
> + Not offered "Install alongside" if other OS isn't Windows or Ubuntu
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1040996
>
> Title:
> Not offered "Install alongside" if other OS isn't Windows or Ubuntu
>
> Status in “ubiquity” package in Ubuntu:
> Triaged
>
> Bug description:
> System is a MacBook Intel Core Duo - 2.4 Ghz - 4 Gig of RAM - 250 Gig Hard Drive.
> Was attempting to perform Test Case uri-001 - on Lubuntu 12.10 build of Aug 21 2012
> Previously installed System was Fedora 14
> According to the Test Case procedure under the heading, "Allocate drive space", the installer is supposed to offer a choice of installing Lubuntu alongside the previous system.
>
> Instead it offered me the following choices:
>
> Replace Fedora 14 with Lubuntu
> Something else
>
> It should be noted that this was my second attempt at performing this
> procedure. During the first attempt (see comment under bug #1034954),
> the aim was to partition available hard drive space between the
> previously installed system - Lubuntu 12.10 build of August 14 2012
> and the system being installed from Live Desktop Disk - Lubuntu 12.10
> build of August 21 2012. A crash occurred at the same point as
> referred to in that bug report. I added my comment.
>
> As suggested by Mr. Ledkovs (comment 9 under bug report #1034954),
> after booting the live install CD, I opened a terminal and ran
> Ubiquity from there.
>
> Thinking that perhaps the two systems were too much alike to be
> installed together, I decided to replace the previous system with
> something else (Fedora 14).
>
> That seems to have led to somewhat inconsistent behaviour from
> Ubiquity at this point in the Test Case.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
> Package: ubiquity (not installed)
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-9.9-generic 3.5.0
> Uname: Linux 3.5.0-9-generic x86_64
> ApportVersion: 2.4-0ubuntu6
> Architec...

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

Dear original submitter - can you please reconfirm the disk partitioning scheme used? Was it LVM with separate /boot?

One thing to note is that from the logs the reporter's machine suggests that it is installed on top of LVM.
Currently LVM is ambiguous from auto-resize point of view.

From implementation point of view, the resize (aka alogside install) is available when:
* existing installation is single full disk (e.g. full disk linux/windows)
* where there is sufficient amount of free space available in that partition to perform a resize
* there is sufficient amount of space left to install ubuntu if resize is attempted
* the partitioner understands how to resize that file system

This is pre-requisites =)
Now the caveats

* the resizing may fail if the extends are allocated in a such a way that a resize without defragmentation is not possible, or not supported enough by existing tools.

This is ambiguous from LVM point of view, because:
* do you want to resize the VG & create a separate normal partition - OR - do you want to create ubuntu lvm volumes within that group?
* where should the boot loader go to?

Sorry for not checking the auto-collected logs more carefully when first looking into the bug. Thank you mpt for updating the Partitioning Options Matrix ;-) I was previously interpolating options while reading it.

[Ron Mitchell (rm2892)]

On 12-09-20 04:28 PM, Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote:

There was no conscious choice to use LVM here. I do not have the
knowledge of Linux required to make that choice intelligently. The
partitioning scheme I wanted to use was not presented as an option by
the installer in an earlier build. In a previous install there had been
a way of compressing the existing system so that it occupied 50% of the
total drive space. The installer then would write a new partition using
the other 50% of drive space freed up. With my current knowledge of LVM,
that's as good an answer as I can give.

Ron Mitchell

> Dear original submitter - can you please reconfirm the disk partitioning
> scheme used? Was it LVM with separate /boot?
>
> One thing to note is that from the logs the reporter's machine suggests that it is installed on top of LVM.
> Currently LVM is ambiguous from auto-resize point of view.
>
> >From implementation point of view, the resize (aka alogside install) is available when:
> * existing installation is single full disk (e.g. full disk linux/windows)
> * where there is sufficient amount of free space available in that partition to perform a resize
> * there is sufficient amount of space left to install ubuntu if resize is attempted
> * the partitioner understands how to resize that file system
>
> This is pre-requisites =)
> Now the caveats
>
> * the resizing may fail if the extends are allocated in a such a way
> that a resize without defragmentation is not possible, or not supported
> enough by existing tools.
>
> This is ambiguous from LVM point of view, because:
> * do you want to resize the VG & create a separate normal partition - OR - do you want to create ubuntu lvm volumes within that group?
> * where should the boot loader go to?
>
> Sorry for not checking the auto-collected logs more carefully when first
> looking into the bug. Thank you mpt for updating the Partitioning
> Options Matrix ;-) I was previously interpolating options while reading
> it.
>

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

I was referring to the fact that you should know what you want to use on a newly about to be installed system.
I am merely stating that the existing installations on the hard disk has lvm volumes and that currently we do not handle the auto resize cases with LVM. The reason is that LVM is not trivial and suggests previous custom install methods.

[Ron Mitchell (rm2892)]

I understand.

But it leaves me needing some guidance as a tester.

This was a case of a test result that did not match the expected result stated in the test case (1301 for Lubuntu Desktop AMD64+Mac). I was unable to carry out steps 5 - 9 of the test case as stated. That leaves me with no choice but to fail the test, in which case I must file a bug report.

Or am I being too picky?

Ron Mitchell

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

No, I don't think you are too picky. I do think that test cases are too verbose. If alongside or re-install options are not offered it usually means that the installer can't handle it, hence not offering them.