9.10 installer auto resizes all partitions, regardless of choice

[akashiraffee]

I have been using linux since 1997. I'm a c/perl/web programmer.

I have to do some work on an openGL project and need to use an accelerated graphics card. I have had too many problems getting drivers to work on FC-10-64 so decided to try Ubuntu.

I am BEYOND DISGUSTED with the fact that the installer decided to resize my hard drive dispite the fact that I choose the first option "place them side by side" -- unless, of course, ALL the options involve resizing, which the other three were "erase all", "use largest free" (why?) and "custom", which clearly involved resizing.

I took a photograph of the screen during the process, just to demonstrate which box was ticked and that resizing occured anyway.

So now I have to resize everything again. Who can I complain to about this absurdity? The way I see it, either:

1) there is no option not to resize in the installer, and ubuntu decided the user does not have to be informed.

2) there is a very severe oversight or bug in the installer

3) you must use "custom", and then just set all the sizes to exactly what they are to start with.

4) you are suppose to use "use largest free space" to avoid resizing. I did not want to use the largest free space. I already had a partition set aside for this.

There was a warning vis, "resizing will take some time". The first time, I chose not to continue. After checking my choice to make sure THERE WAS NO MENTION OF RESIZING, I figured there was only one pop-up, and the note was simply to inform you in case you had choosen such an option.

Not only that, but the resizing is absurdly done. I had three partitions and some empty space. I now have six (one extended!), and some of the partitions were cut in half. I don't want or need a swap partition, either. I have not seen a linux swap partition actually get used on any computer I have owned in years, IMO they are totally anachronistic and should certainly be optional.

I would very much like to send the morons responsible for this fiasco an email, a photograph, and some bug reports, but I wanted to get some input from other users on this first.

Any normal sane installer I have ever seen just asks you which partition you would like to use. I really hope the rest of the ubuntu isn't this ***-backward. It almost seems to me that as the windows designers are smarting up, the linux ones are getting stupider. Nice role reversal, ubuntu!

[darkod]

If you already had a planned partition, you need to use manual partitioning and point it to it. It can't know what are you keeping the partition for right?
If it was free unpartitioned (unallocated) space, then you should have used the Use Largest Free Space bla bla option.
If you want to install on a drive which has no free unpartitioned space, how can you do it without any resizing?

[akashiraffee]

You can defend this esoteric/iconoclastic partitioning schema however you want, the fact is it does not explain some basic and essential facts to the user. After using it once and getting some advice, I suppose I would do it differently. But once again:

1) I am a professional programmer.
2) linux has been my OS of choice for a decade
3) I have a BA in English, which is to say I am not illiterate or anything.

When you choose "custom" it DOES NOT simply provide you with a choice of partitions -- it shows you a blank bar with all the partitions removed, as if you wanted to pick how many you want and how big they should be. If that is not a "resize anyway" option, it sure as hell looks like one.

Hands down one of the saddest, most counter intuitive interfaces I have ever seen. And I write software. Clearly someone fell off the sillly chair coming up with the concept for this one. Please explain to me why, in addition to a partition for itself and the TOTALLY ANACHRONISTIC AND USELESS "SWAP" PARTITION, it would then also add another extended partition, like for what? I started with THREE. I now have SIX. Is this someone's idea of a bad joke?

[darkod]

When you choose "custom" it DOES NOT simply provide you with a choice of partitions

Yes it does. Don't remember it exactly now but I believe if you clicked Forward it would have opened the partitioner for you.
And I'm not trying to defend anything, I really feel bad about the problem you encountered. But I feel it needs to be clarified for other people that will also stumble on this thread, in search engines, etc.
The choice is rather basic, you either let the machine do everything itself, or if you want control over it use manual. Don't tell me windows installer can guess the partition sizes you want and how many partitions you want and create them for you.
As for "it does not explain some basic and essential facts to the user", excuse me, but do you think users without reading about basic and essential facts in advance should start installing a whole new OS?

[ajgreeny]

Do please calm down and think a little about what you are suggesting.

If you want to put Ubuntu, with or without a swap partition, onto a specific partition already available on your computer's hard disk, then to me the obvious way to do it is to choose the manual option to "set your own partitions", or however it is described. How else is the installer supposed to know where you want to install? The first part of the partitioning stage of the installer simply shows the disk (or disks) that are available, but does not show you the partitions on it, if I remember correctly. If you want to choose one partition out of many, then you can do so, but have to do it manually, which to me seems obvious.

I am also surprised about your comment on swap partitions. Why do you believe they are not needed, and anachronistic? Perhaps if you are running on a new machine with masses of ram you can survive without swap, but on many machines on which Ubuntu is installed swap is absolutely necessary. I have it running on a 5 year old laptop with 512 MB ram, 32 of which are shared with the graphic card, and swap is used a fair bit on that when doing things like photo editing or other ram intensive operations. Without swap this machine would be quite a bit slower than it is.

[akashiraffee]

If you want to put Ubuntu, with or without a swap partition, onto a specific partition already available on your computer's hard disk, then to me the obvious way to do it is to choose the manual option to "set your own partitions", or however it is described. How else is the installer supposed to know where you want to install?

Okay, but that is the reverse of the norm -- I've installed linux dozens and dozens of times (mostly debian and fedora). The normal and rational method, while it has gotten fancier looking over time, is to ask the user which partition they would like to use. Anything involving "resizing" would be considered a custom option. Which when you click "custom" in Ubuntu, it does appear to be about resizing. Maybe something else happens when you go forward, but how am I to know that? I don't want to go forward. I want to AVOID RESIZING. So I pick the first and simplest choice "place the partitions side by side". Which, since the partitions ARE ALREADY SIDE BY SIDE, this would very strongly imply to a sane and rational person that nothing will be changed, and Ubuntu will be added to the end. Presumably, you will now be asked for a size, etc. But no! It does not even ask you to confirm anything meaningful, which this is also the first time I have seen that in an installer. Is this supposed to be progress?!??

The interface is uninformative and, in essence, patronizing. Like, you don't want to give the user enough info in case that seems intimidating. It is an attempt to seem "user friendly" that results in the EXACT OPPOSITE.

It is also, as I just described, the opposite of a traditional installer, and the opposite of a common sense approach. What YOU seem to be suggesting, and the way it currently works, is that resizing is a default activity, and you have to do a custom or manual install in order not to resize. Resizing should be an option you choose if you need it, not something that happens automatically.



The first part of the partitioning stage of the installer simply shows the disk (or disks) that are available, but does not show you the partitions on it, if I remember correctly. If

I am afraid you remember incorrectly. The partitions are shown.



I am also surprised about your comment on swap partitions. Why do you believe they are not needed, and anachronistic? Perhaps if you are running on a new machine with masses of ram you can survive without swap, but on many machines on which Ubuntu is installed swap is absolutely necessary.

Fair enough. But I think it is unnecessary on most machines for most purposes and users. Other distros at least ASK if you would like a swap partition -- I am not saying they should be unavailable, I am just saying this is hardly a user friendly arrangement if I have to go and remove it myself after the fancy-pants, "dumbed down to dumb" installer has done it's half-baked job with it's pared down choices.

Finally: again, someone, please oh please, explain why it needs to add THREE more partitions, including one extended which nobody will use for anything? It's like the whole "smart" feature here is, in fact, in possession of no intelligent decision making potential at all.


Don't tell me windows installer can guess the partition sizes you want and how many partitions you want and create them for you.

I hate using the windows installer as an example of anything to emulate, but in fact, the last time I used it (7) it showed me the partitions, and asked me which one I would like to use. It did not automatically assume everything had to be resized. In the past, windows was horrible for this: I have seen it overwrite a partition without asking (win95). This is what I mean: it seems the MS people are smarting up, and I am sad to see the linux people, in an attempt to emulate some kind of MS semi-literate point and click dumbshow, forgetting the legacy they are a part of.



As for "it does not explain some basic and essential facts to the user", excuse me, but do you think users without reading about basic and essential facts in advance should start installing a whole new OS?

Very good point, you are totally right.

Except I just went back to the ubuntu site to see what that "documentation" says (since in all honesty I didn't bother looking for it). Guess what: it doesn't exist!


STEP 3: When the CD is ready, simply put it in your CD drive, restart your computer and follow the instructions that will appear on your screen. Don't forget that you can create more copies and pass the CD to as many people as you like.

This is presented as something that needs no further explanation. Then it fails to provide any, because I guess the developers figured they were so clever they could just take all the responsibility out of your little hands so you don't have to worry your silly head -- and presto! The hd is resized! No problem!

[oldfred]

I have always used the manual install since I want to create partitions in advance which I have done since DOS3. Also the partitions based on MBR are still the same since DOS. Then only four partitions were available, a change now allows one to be an extended partition with many more partitions inside it. So Ubuntu installing in an extended partition only uses one of the valulable four primary partitions.

MBR partitioning has a max of 2TB so with the next size increase in drives, we all will have to use a new system probably GPT which Apple is already using.

[akashiraffee]

So Ubuntu installing in an extended partition only uses one of the valulable four primary partitions.


Ah, right. I knew that, but I never use extended partitions, so I didn't realize you end up with an extra device node (eg, /dev/sda4 is the extended partition, but it is the same physical place as /dev/sda5, which I guess is the actual linux partition inside the "extended" partition).

Kind of interesting it decide to shrink everything else, then allocate itself the most space despit the fact half the drive was empty to start with. Like again, there was absolutely no reason or need to resize anything.

[akashiraffee]

Wow, so I sat down to fix the mess ubuntu made of my harddrive today and found something else:


Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 12647 101586996 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 20251 26390 49319550 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 26391 42709 131082367+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 42710 60801 145323990 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 42710 60061 139379908+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 60062 60801 5944018+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Notice there is a big gap there between sda1 and sda2! The ubuntu installer now refers to this as "unusable free space", which it is.

Since sda1 was originally 150mb, and is now about 95, and that hole is about 60, I would guess the ubuntu installer
1) left the start of sda2 the same, and resized it.
2) resized sda1 for no logical reason, leaving "unusable free space".

That is what we do to "place the partitions side by side"?
Good job! A genuine bug, methinks.

[QIII]

I've been using Linux since about '94, when it was still pretty obscure.

I've been using Ubuntu since Warty.

I've been programming since the days of punch cards and acoustic couplers.

"User friendly" is in the eyes of the beholder. What you produce as a programmer may seem quite "user friendly" to you. That is a function of familiarity. When I develop, there is usually a long "use case scenario" dialog with the client to make sure that the UI is "user friendly" to them.

You are familiar with how you have done this in the past. Therefore, that method is "user friendly" to you. Windows users who come to Linux often complain about lack of "user friendliness." Their notion of "user friendliness" has been cultivated by long familiarity with the way Windows works. Linux distros are no less "user friendly." They are simply different. They do not only differ from Windows, but also from each other.

I have never experienced the issues you have had. I always manually partition and get exactly what I want.

Perhaps the better course of action after encountering something you were not familiar with would have been to ask questions then.

By the way. Swap is no anachronism to those who want to be able to "suspend to disk."

One of my degrees is a BA in Modern Languages and Literatures - German. In either English or German, a grammatically perfect rant is still no more than a rant.

We remain here to help, even after a rant. But we were also here to help when you discovered something that concerned you -- before you stumbled forward. Please feel free to avail yourself of the help and advice here. But bear in mind that we do this voluntarily and on our own time.

[efflandt]

There is an old saying that if you want something done right, do it yourself. I always set up partitions myself, because you never know what assumptions any automatic scheme will make.

For some reason when HP set up my computer, they used 240 heads for the drive in the partition table. Some years ago when I installed 64-bit WinXP Pro beta, even though I told it to use an existing partition, it changed partition table geometry without telling me, from 240 heads to 255 heads with a different number of cylinders. So partitions no longer ended on cylinder boundaries, and XP64 beta could not even boot itself, much less XP Home. Unfortunately I had not recorded fdisk details, so I had to reconstruct the partition table from memory using fdisk expert mode from a Linux rescue CD, and a lot of trial and error until I hit the right numbers. Then when I was installing SuSE I recognized from numbers it showed on the screen, that it was going rewrite my partition table like XP64 did, so I stopped that and used whatever custom mode to make sure it used the partition I created, without touching the partition table.

So when I discovered Ubuntu, I knew enough not to trust any ambiguous automatic partitioning. I used gparted-live CD to shrink NTFS and create partitions, and the Custom mode of Ubuntu installation to select which to use for that. What scared me at first was that even when I selected which "existing" partitions to use in Custom mode, Ubuntu install said it was going to "rewrite partition table" (why?). Fortunately everything worked.