I wanted to install Lubuntu 12.10 to a 4GB USB flash drive, but the 12.10 installer refuses to work if the disk size is less than 4.4GB. That's a problem because Lubuntu would actually install fine on a 4GB USB drive, especially if the user chooses to not create a swap partition. But the installer doesn't let the user get past the "I won't install on a <4.4GB disk" stage.
It's perfectly feasible to install Lubuntu to a 4GB flash drive; there would about 2GB free space after installation with no swap partition.
Some suggestions:
- Reduce the minimum allowable disk size and make it a recommendation, not mandatory.
- When working out whether the drive is large enough for Lubuntu to be installed, take into account the size of any swap partition. Perhaps show a warning dialog if the user proceeds with a small drive, but don't prevent installation completely.
Here are some space-used figures after I installed Lubuntu 12.10 to a 4.4GB VirtualBox VM:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 3766504 1911200 1663972 54% /
Device Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 7655423 3826688 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 7657470 9226239 784385 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 7657472 9226239 784384 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Note the swap size! With no swap partition there would be almost 2.5GB of free space. There would therefore be over 2GB of free space after installing to a 4GB USB stick/memory card, if the installer allowed it. That's plenty for light usage.
I wanted to install Lubuntu 12.10 to a 4GB USB flash drive, but the 12.10 installer refuses to work if the disk size is less than 4.4GB. That's a problem because Lubuntu would actually install fine on a 4GB USB drive, especially if the user chooses to not create a swap partition. But the installer doesn't let the user get past the "I won't install on a <4.4GB disk" stage.
It's perfectly feasible to install Lubuntu to a 4GB flash drive; there would about 2GB free space after installation with no swap partition.
Some suggestions:
- Reduce the minimum allowable disk size and make it a recommendation, not mandatory.
- When working out whether the drive is large enough for Lubuntu to be installed, take into account the size of any swap partition. Perhaps show a warning dialog if the user proceeds with a small drive, but don't prevent installation completely.
Here are some space-used figures after I installed Lubuntu 12.10 to a 4.4GB VirtualBox VM:
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 3766504 1911200 1663972 54% /
Device Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 7655423 3826688 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 7657470 9226239 784385 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 7657472 9226239 784384 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Note the swap size! With no swap partition there would be almost 2.5GB of free space. There would therefore be over 2GB of free space after installing to a 4GB USB stick/memory card, if the installer allowed it. That's plenty for light usage.