installer crashes

[Tarun]

see the debug info for details.

in short,
I created two partitions on the target pen drive, one for using as EFI partition. the other for root partition.

pen drive: San Disk Ultra Fit USB3 drive.
system: MSI GL63 8RE 455IN

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.10
Package: ubiquity 19.10.21
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.3.0-18.19-generic 5.3.1
Uname: Linux 5.3.0-18-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.2
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.427
Date: Tue Nov 26 13:45:25 2019
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz persistent file=/cdrom/preseed/xubuntu.seed quiet splash ---
LiveMediaBuild: Xubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Release amd64 (20191017)
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Tarun (1tarun)]

tried to run the installer again. some program crashed again and I chose to Quit instead of trying again. wish it was also reported.

side notes:
1. saw reproducible bugs related to nouveau when the HDMI cable was plugged in. remove it to avoid frequent shutdowns in live session.

2. running live session off of a live usb created using latest rufus(for 26 Nov). selected 10 GB persistence, to make it easier to debug and persist settings after shutdown.

3. can't fix the bluetooth getting turned on automatically every boot. next level stupid software-design. the wi-fi does behave and remember to stay turned off.

--------

also debugging these issues is a pain right now, even with persistence.

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Thanks for your report.

It's very likely due to the nouveau driver crashing. Could you try to boot in safe graphics mode?

To do that, press any key on boot to display the boot menu and select "try ubuntu (safe graphics mode)" If the live session boots, then try an installation and select "Install third party drivers" in the installer.

[Tarun (1tarun)]

new issues can't be auto reported by system as the persistence drive seems to be full. but `sudo du -hs /`
 gives `16G /` as output.

But when I open the `/` directory in `thunar` its shows total size as 9.9 GiB, so same as 10 GB persistence drive.

-----
WHAT FILLED THE SPACE SO MUCH?

after entering the live session, updated all packages using `sudo apt update`. then upgraded select packages. found that command for updating packages was not intuitive(apt update or apt upgrade) but `apt install`. rebooted couple of times. then did `sudo apt get upgrade --download-only` then `sudo apt upgrade` for different packages; one or 3 at a time.
----

this should help anyone else using persistence option with Xubuntu.

[Tarun (1tarun)]

damn the safe graphics mode sucks. the resolution is way too low for comfort.
i posted the same comment twice, because of it.

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Yeah, but at least you should be able to proceed with the installation in which nvidia drivers will be installed if you selected "Third party drivers" and you should have a good resolution on the installed system.

[Tarun (1tarun)]

quoting from comment by jibel
select "Install third party drivers" in the installer

did that when I first encountered the error. will try in safe graphics mode; after I redo all the steps I did for the 3rd time today.

automation in this respect would be welcome, excluding the obvious stuff.

[Tarun (1tarun)]

tip- since passwords can't be checked for errors at the "configure secure boot"
phase, type it out and then copy it to save time.

same for any other password filling stages in the install process.

[Tarun (1tarun)]

selected 'something else' then the window has 'Installation type'(can't copy-paste it) at top-left corner.

Below that there used to be text about installation media but its absolutely unreadable by humans both in safe graphics mode and the default mode.

################################################################

also get this for some reason, when I select a partition on pen drive as root->

---text---
Before you can select a new partition size, any previous changes have to be written to disk.

You cannot undo this operation.

Please note that the resize operation may take a long time.
---end text-----

like, what the hell is this about? seems the Ubiquity installer is high or something.

[Tarun (1tarun)]

i'm getting tired of setting the EFI partition and '/ partition' to be on the pen drive. along with the bootloader. and of repeating other steps.

it does correctly remember the name, machine name, but not the username. and the passwords need to be copy-pasted. I'll just save them in a file.

clicked on install.

turns out it was doing stuff before I clicked on it. that's going to cause issues. and tells me that performance maybe is not that great.

and then clicked on the arrow to see the terminal that displays the progress. It was too small on non safe-graphics and is too small on safe-graphics. that terminal can't be resized, its font size can't be increased.

----

about this site:
And the 'dark reader' Firefox extension doesn't help with this god-awful all white background in 'safe graphics' mode.

----

the progress bar resets after almost every step. so god knows how far till it crashes. use two progress bars, one for the overall progress.

[Tarun (1tarun)]

and it crashed again.

the message->
the problem cannot be reported.

Your home partition has less than 0.0 MB of free space available, which leads to problems using applications and installing updates. Please free some space.

-----------------

ah crap, I'm getting as dumb as this installer. time to free some space, though it seems like there's already free space. as only 16 G was used last I checked, now its 18 G(GB or GiB or Gobibyte?).

'sudo apt autoremove' does not free up space.
'sudo apt autoclean' does not free up space.

---------

aside:
yeah, I'm done with this for now. this is finally level 7 of overwhelming, and that's as far as I can go for now.

[Tarun (1tarun)]

back in normal mode, and the extension still can't hide this page's blinding white.

from https://help.launchpad.net/BugExpiry, mark this as expired. I'm going to do something other than testing software.

suggestion for public service:
and man, the installer is slow, what does it run on python? holy crap, it actually does use python.
and python developers think "performance doesn't matter because computers are so fast". please hire some non-python developers that understand computer science, there's just too much python for one OS.
also, its hard to read with invisible syntax element(spaces and tabs) for non-hipster coders.

[Tarun (1tarun)]

if this is due to nouveau is, like https://launchpad.net/~jibel and now I too suspect; the proprietary drivers would help for sure.

the proprietary nvidia drivers should be the default anyway as that's what makes the most sense by default, unless Ubuntu is meant for only a niche set of users..

can't install those drivers in this case.

once this nvidia driver gets set as default, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1854031 may also get fixed.

also, please note that I'm not going to be able to debug this tangle of issues.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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