Installer failed to create a partition table

[Joel64]

EDIT (May 20): See new info in post #6.

I had Ubuntu 22.04 on my laptop, and started installing Kubuntu 24.04 a few minutes ago.
Went through the steps and chose the erase disk option, and when it came time for it to install, I got this error:

- - - - - - - - - -
Installation Failed
The installer failed to create a partition table on vgubuntu

Details:
Create a new partition table (type: gpt) on '/dev/vgubuntu'
Job: Create a new partition table on device '/dev/vgubuntu'
- - - - - - - - - -

I'm fairly new to this, so please explain things like I'm an idiot, lol.

Thanks!

[Snowhog]

/dev/vgubuntu is 'odd'

What are you attempting to install to? What type of PC do you have? Specifications please. From what are you installing from? How did you create the installation media?

[Joel64]

/dev/vgubuntu is 'odd'

What are you attempting to install to? What type of PC do you have? Specifications please. From what are you installing from? How did you create the installation media?

It's an HP laptop, only a couple years old, came with Windows 11. I installed Ubuntu 22.04 on it a few weeks ago.

I downloaded the Kubuntu 24.04 ISO to my laptop, then created an installation USB from that.

vgubuntu was the partition that Ubuntu was on. The hard drive is an internal 1TB SSD.

[Schwarzer Kater]

Sound like you had LVM enabled for the Kubuntu 22.04 LTS installation (possibly encryption with LUKS too)…

[Joel64]

Sound like you had LVM enabled for the Kubuntu 22.04 LTS installation (possibly encryption with LUKS too)…

I was using Ubuntu 22.04 LTS previously. And yes, it was LVM / LUKS enabled.

[Joel64]

Okay, after a successful 22.04 install, I took another stab at installing 24.04.

First of all, no matter what I tried, I ran into the original issue in my first post above.
I even tried deleting all partitions, but sda2 would not delete. In fact the Delete button was grayed out.
So I ran a shred command on sda2, and it took a while just to shred 1% of it, so I stopped.

But lo and behold, 24.04 was able to install normally, with no issues at all during the process.

But now my laptop runs slower than it did with 22.04.
Reinstalled.
Still slow. In fact, during a transfer of files from the backup drive, the whole system froze, had to do a hard shutdown.
Reinstalled again,
But the laptop is still running slower than before.

I put 24.04 on a 6 1/2 year old laptop with only 6GB RAM, and it runs faster.
I put 24.04 on a 10-year old laptop, and it runs faster.

This 2-year old laptop with 16GB RAM runs slower than it did with 22.04.

Is there anything I can check that might be causing the slowness?

FYI, I was transferring files while I typed this (on the older faster laptop), and it all froze up again.

Are there any known issues with hardware or whatever?

[claydoh]

Are there any known issues with hardware or whatever?

Can't say since we have zero info on the hardware you have. Make/model, CPU, graphics, Ram, maybe even drive(s) layout. (KInfoCenter)

Also, define 'slow' (the whats, whens, wheres) so we can better understand the specific symptoms. Locking up isn't necessarily related to "speed"
It sounds more like a memory leak in something you are running sucking up your ram and thus causing you to be hitting the swap. Some systems seem to hit swap early as well.
(System Monitor)


But it is also not uncommon for some hardware or system boards on some kernels to need some grub boot time or kernel option tweaks.

So I ran a shred command on sda2, and it took a while just to shred 1% of it, so I stopped.

Yes, any drive that has had a few OS installs can need to have this or something similar done after a while to clear out a corrupted or 'stuck' partition table. I have do this with my USB thumb drives fairly regularly, if they have have had ISOs or other images 'burned' to them a few too many times
I am just realizing that I have not had to do this in a while now, since moving to using Ventoy to copy ISO images to them instead of physically 'burning' them every time, but that is another topic.

[Qqmike]

Yeah, but he only let it run for 1%, then interrupted it. How about a straight dd?

[claydoh]

Yeah, but he only let it run for 1%,

But that is more than you need to clear a partition table.
Sure, a 'shred' might be a touch overkill for this very specific job, but I will strongly guess that a 'shred', depending on the tool, is actually using dd, or doing the same thing.
But I could have included the quick and lazy metthod to do this: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=512 count=1 (I ain't waiting on a full wipe on a huge USB stick, I gots things to DO )

But as usual there are 3141⁵ ways to skin this cat.

[Qqmike]

Oh, I see, just a partition table at the 1st addressable location on the disk (where dd/shredder starts?) ... nothing at the very end of the disk, so just an MBR.

[Joel64]

Can't say since we have zero info on the hardware you have. Make/model, CPU, graphics, Ram, maybe even drive(s) layout. (KInfoCenter)

Operating System: Kubuntu 24.04
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.11
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.115.0
Qt Version: 5.15.13
Kernel Version: 6.8.0-31-generic (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 8 × 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
Memory: 15.3 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® Xe Graphics
Manufacturer: HP
Product Name: HP Laptop 17-cn0xxx

I know, and I apologize for not posting it at the time. I just wondered of there was a general reason why the issue happens.

The strange thing is, it happens with 24.04 but not 22.04 on this one laptop.
My other two laptops are 7 and 10 years old, with much less RAM and lesser specs, and they handle 24.04 with no issues.

Also, define 'slow' (the whats, whens, wheres) so we can better understand the specific symptoms.

Slow, as in taking 10-20 seconds for Dolphin to load. Typing 'disk' in Application Launcher and I'm done typing way before the word finishes showing up.
It takes a similar amount of time for browsers to launch, or Discover, or anything else.
Booting up also takes some time, with a minute or more of black screens, with just the mouse cursor appearing (I can move it).

[claydoh]

The strange thing is, it happens with 24.04 but not 22.04 on this one laptop.

Different kernels and their associated drivers, as well as different system libraries. Might be specific to your specific laptop's mainboard.

I have the exact same cpu/graphics, and even brand as you do, but I can't use 22.04 on this because of hardware support - no audio or touchscreen, Even on 24.04 I would not have audio without some extra work I can't bother discovering right now.
mine and yours have completely different hardware and BIOS, even though the can appear identical at the basic specs level.

Operating System: Fedora Linux 40
KDE Plasma Version: 6.0.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 6.2.0
Qt Version: 6.7.0
Kernel Version: 6.8.9-300.fc40.x86_64 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: Wayland


Processors: 8 × 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz
Memory: 7.6 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: Mesa Intel® Xe Graphics
Manufacturer: Google <---really HP

​
Product Name: Elemi <----really a 14b-NB0015CL Chromebook, best 120USD I have spent on a computer in a long time
System Version: rev3​

Mine is NOT slow at all. But of course this is a different distro at the moment, on top of the more current Plasma.

I would still suggest looking at a systom monitor app, to see how much resources you are using, and what is using them. Also to see if you are for some reason accessing swap.

Check for what may be slowing the boot time:

$ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 1.364s (kernel) + 1min 8.368s (initrd) + 7.346s (userspace) = 1min 17.079s
graphical.target reached after 7.335s in userspace.

Mine was slow, but I know why here.

systemd-anlalyze blame

Will show what is taking the longest tom load, and may assist in finding issues

and

systemd-anaylze critical-chain

Will show what parts are holding up others from loading. Most things are loaded in parallel, but others need toi wait for something to load first.
It will be a tree format, not ther flat stuff below

$ systemd-analyze critical-chain
The time when unit became active or started is printed after the "@" character.
The time the unit took to start is printed after the "+" character.

graphical.target @7.335s
└─sddm.service @7.335s
└─plymouth-quit.service @7.300s +26ms
└─systemd-user-sessions.service @7.282s +10ms
└─remote-fs.target @7.280s
└─remote-fs-pre.target @3.907s
└─nfs-client.target @3.907s
└─gssproxy.service @3.863s +43ms
└─network.target @3.860s
└─wpa_supplicant.service @3.848s +11ms
└─basic.target @2.617s
└─dbus-broker.service @2.582s +33ms
└─dbus.socket @2.562s
└─sysinit.target @2.558s
└─systemd-resolved.service @2.488s +70ms
└─systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service @2.348s +118ms
└─import-state.service @2.315s +21ms
└─local-fs.target @2.285s
└─opt-piavpn-etc-cgroup-net_cls.mount @6.275s
└─local-fs-pre.target @1.112s

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[Schwarzer Kater]

[…]
I would still suggest looking at a systom monitor app, to see how much resources you are using, and what is using them. Also to see if you are for some reason accessing swap.
[…]

If I may: htop is still one of the best ones (sudo apt install htop) and very versatile.

[Joel64]

If I may: htop is still one of the best ones (sudo apt install htop) and very versatile.

I'm liking it! Thanks for the heads up.

In other news, I'll need to stick with 22.04, and see if next year's release will work better.
24.04 also just locked up my wife's computer a few minutes ago when I was working with the external backup drive, so I don't know what's going on.

I also noticed that external drives aren't automatically mounted when I boot up. That might be a new feature, but if not, then that's another thing gone awry.

Loving the K, though, in spite of the growing pains of a new release.
Beats Windows to a pulp, lol.

[Qqmike]

Joel64, I've seen a few people here say they wait until the ".1" comes out, so 24.04.1 ... when? maybe August? (IDK for sure)