Partitioning experience in installer SUCKS

[RedScourge]

Hi,

I am trying to install Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS x64 from a freshly burned CD that passed verification.

I am getting to the part where the partitioner is supposed to let me configure things, and I wanted to blow away an existing raid+lvm setup on the drives and install a new system. It would not let me directly, so I had to do all sorts of convoluted things that I can't for the life of me remember, including telling it to install ontop of one of the existing partitions. Now the installer refuses to recongize that drive entirely (must be some sort of "safety" feature), and now that I've managed to wipe the other drives (or so it seems), it will NOT let me create an actual RAID array on my RAID partitions, yet it gives me no error.

I imagine that if I could just wipe all partitions completely off all drives, I wouldn't be running into these glitches, but SOME IDIOT decided that it would be too much to ask to include fdisk in the livecd, so I cannot drop into a shell, wipe the drives, then proceed with the partitioning like normal and bypass all this craziness.

So I've wasted two hours repeatedly rebooting and trying to find a way to get this stupid thing to let me do what I have done at least a dozen times before on blank drives with few issues. I figured "no, these guys can't possibly lack such foresight, there's GOT to be a way", but alas I would have been better off to burn a Knoppix disk, wipes the drives, THEN book into the installer.

PLEASE do something about this situation! I don't know if it means including fdisk in the shell, adding some sort of "wipe all partitions" option that comes before the partitioner, upgrading the partitioner, or maybe all of the above, but something, anything, would be better than leaving it the way it is.

I'm going to try and find two things I can afford to replace, and throw one of them against the other as hard as I can.

[RedScourge (redscourge)]

And probably worst of all, is the fact that apparently for my own safety, at various points I would like to be able to write out the partition table, but it refuses, because OMG, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY MOUNT POINTS YET, SO NOW ALL YOU CAN DO IS UNDO ALL CHANGES MWAHAHAHA!

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1394091/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[RedScourge (redscourge)]

Yes, I found this automated message to be inappropriate, not to say that I believe my tone was, but rather because THE INSTALLER IS NOT A PACKAGE as far as I can tell.

[RedScourge (redscourge)]

I tried to find which package it might be, and all I got was either "too many results" or "no results". Brilliant.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

FYI, fdisk and parted in fact are included so you can go to a terminal and use them to blow everything away.

[RedScourge (redscourge)]

When I tried dropping into a shell at various points during the install, those commands did not work at any point. I imagine it has to be in there _SOMEWHERE_ so as to allow actual partitioning, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're only loaded into memory after the last point where it's possible to drop into a shell before the partitioning phase of the setup, and before the partitioning phase. I found this to be the case after burning both the 14.04 LTS and 14.04.1 LTS discs.