Trouble with manual partitioning during install

[mivo]

Installing 7.04 from the Live CD with the "guided" setting works, but this only creates / and a swap partition. Once I had a running system, I put the Live CD in and attempted to re-install with manual partitioning.

In the "Prepare Partitions" window, I deleted the existing partitions, selected the "free space" and clicked "new partition". The first partition I created was 20000 MB , ext3 and with the mount point "/" (minus the quotation marks). It was a primary partition. This worked. Next I repeated the process (same settings) different size (also ext3 and primary), picked some 227 GB (the disk is 250 GB) and typed in "/home" as the mount point. The installer tells me that I "Can't have the end before the start". It makes no difference whether I select the "end" radio button, or make no selection. I can add a swap partition, which will be added to the end of the list, but trying to create a partition from the "free space" in the middle and providing /home as the mount point fails.

So, what am I doing wrong? Is typing in / and /home for the mount points incorrect? When I look at what the installer did previously (when it created / and swap by itself), I see that the mount point for the large partition is "/media/sda1", and not "/".

The drop-down menu next to "mount point" in the partition creation dialog is empty.

Help?

[Qqmike]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

Hard to tell. The partitioning step is much improved, but sometimes can be confusing/finicky/unclear. Personally, I wouldn't bother to try to figure it out. Best, safe, controlled bet is to use GParted Live CD to do exactly what you wish to do, down to the MB.

GParted: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

After doing so, the installer will detect the partitions you made in GParted. Also, the installer MAY (?) wish to format your chosen partitions again, and if so, that's OK.

BTW, the Live CD is handy to keep, even if you also install GParted in Kubuntu. There are times when using the Live CD is much easier.

[dibl]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

Yep, do what Qqmike said. Don't forget to set the "boot" flag on the partition where you intend to install "/".

[penguin.ch]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

Don't forget to set the "boot" flag on the partition where you intend to install "/"

What for he's going to install Linux, not Windoze :P

[dibl]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

What for

Looks like he's using the whole disk -- he's gotta have bootable partition in there somewhere!

[Qqmike]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

I think the flag will be set (note the passive voice) when Kubuntu installs/formats. I've never had to set it on my hard drives. However, recently I had to set it on a flash drive where I manually installed an OS that wouldn't boot.

[penguin.ch]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

I think the flag will be set (note the passive voice) when Kubuntu installs/formats.

No. - And I doubt that GRUB would care about this flag (at least not when working with "regular" harddisks ...).

[dibl]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

10 minutes with Google on this subject appears to indicate that U.R. is correct (what a shock!) -- neither Grub nor the Linux kernel care whether there is a "boot" flag set anywhere on any hard drive or partition.

So, color me better-informed!

[eriefisher]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

If this is true then why is there an option to set the boot flag? I remember a past install where the boot flag was set to /home of the previous install and the installer complained until I changed it to /.

eriefisher

[Qqmike]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

Huh. Yep, dibl, does seem that UR is correct.

I just experimented myself silly here, and the short version of my messing is that UR is correct. As a past girlfriend would say, It may not be right, but it is correct. (Wish I could forget that sound-bite.)

The boot flag I was thinking of was the one set at sda1 (XP) by Windows.
No other boot flags on my Linux drive sdb. GRUB is installed to sda-MBR (hd0) and to sdb1 (my dedicated GRUB-files partition). Kubuntu / is at sdb4 and another Kubuntu / at sdb5. No flags on sdb.

Just to see something, I installed GRUB from sdb1 to the MBR on sdb (sudo grub, root (hd1,0), setup (hd1), quit). Still no boot flag set anywhere on sdb (I checked both GParted and sudo fdisk -lu) . (BUT, now I can chainload that second hard drive )

Interesting. What else do we think we know but don't . . .

[eriefisher]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

What else do we think we know but don't . . .

One thing I do know is that I don't know enough to know that I don't know.

eriefisher

[dibl]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

One thing I do know is that I don't know enough to know that I don't know.

Yep. "You don't know what you don't know" - there are some words to live by!

[mivo]

Re: Trouble with manual partitioning during install

Thanks guys.

The problem was indeed that the Kubuntu installer calculated the size of the disk wrong (by about 10-20 GB), so the error message was actually correct. I found no fix for this, so I used the GParted Live CD to partition the disk. Then I went back to the Kubuntu installer and could assign the mount points and install without any further trouble.

Spent last night and all of today today setting up the system and importing mail, moving over files, etc. Quite happy with Kubuntu so far! (Especially after I found Dolphin, which I prefer to Konqueror for file management,)