Ubuntu Feisty (Herd 2) -- x86 Desktop CD BAD install failure

I have now installed Feisty by editing Edgy's /etc/apt/sources.list where I replaced "edgy" with "feisty" and run "sudo apt-get upgrade".

The old Ubiquity in /usr/lib/ubiquity was not upgraded so I did:
sudo apt-get remove ubiquity
sudo apt-get install --reinstall ubiquity

 I have also taken backup copy og the old /usr/lib/ubiquity/ and /usr/bin/ubiquity files. The old (Edgy's) Ubiquity runs 100% correctly.

Anyway,
I can now repeatedly recreate both error1) and 2) by running
sudo /usr/bin/ubiquity

I will debug the files in /usr/lib/ubiquity to find out what's wrong.

I am having the identical problem on my dell d800 laptop and have never had problem before either. I hope this can be resolved soon.

I also noticed Error 1 and its workaround (ctrl+alt+f1, ctrl+alt+f7) on my nVidia 7600 GT/AMD k8 system.

can confirm this on Dell Inspiron 8500

Just tried on my dell d800 latitiude with herd 2 and get the same error. the so called workaround does not keep the installer from crashing when i get to partitioning the disk.

Crashing on partitioning the disk is bug 76976. Quite a number of duplicates already!

I'd like to point out that my keyboard layout is US, so I don't think the scrambled video bug has anything to do with that.

I just discovered that the developers has fixed the partititioning bug in the Feisty's installation program. Many thanks !

If you want to test the latest installer for Feisty, do:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

and run
$ sudo python /usr/bin/ubiquity

Just check if it finds all your harddisks - then cancel it if you do not want to overwrite data.

The error 1), scrambled display, remains to be fixed.

I have now downloaded Feisty release 2007.01.15 from
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/20070115/

Again, I confirmed the MD5SUM several times.

The show stoppers are:

a) Feisty's installation program crashes at start.
I press the Install icon but nothing happens.

If I start the installer from the command line, it says:
root@ubuntu:~# ubiquity --desktop %k gtkui

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 186, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 181, in main
    install(args[0])
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 45, in install
    mod = __import__('ubiquity.frontend', globals(), locals(), frontends)
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 53, in <module>
    from ubiquity.debconfcommunicator import DebconfCommunicator
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/debconfcommunicator.py", line 22, in <module>
    import debconf
ImportError: No module named debconf
------------------------------------------------------

So where is this debconf.py module ?
$ locate debconf.py
/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/debconf.py

You can fix this error by adding
sys.path.insert(0, '/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/')
to "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity" file, just after the first sys.path.insert(...) line.

So the lines in "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity" look like this:
......
import optparse

sys.path.insert(0, '/usr/lib/ubiquity')
sys.path.insert(0, '/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/')

from ubiquity import misc

VERSION = '1.3.12'
......

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

OK. I could now start the installation from the icon on the desktop.

b) I select the keyboard "Norwegian" and the screen becomes unreadable (scrambled). The error 1) mentioned in the first email is still there. Pressed CNTR + ALT + F1 and ALT +F7 to get around it.

c) Moved on to the partitioning and I selected "Manual partitioning" in the "Prepare disk space" dialog.

It started GParted. But simultaneously it also opened file browser (nautilus) windows for all existing disk patititions. So I got 5 open file browser windows on the desktop.
See picture: http://www.futuredesktop.org/feisty-2/install_error3a.png

Is this a debugging issue ?
------------------------------------------------------

d) Moved on to the "Prepare mount points" dialog. It was OK, but the list is unsorted. It would be nice if it sorted the list by mount points or drive names like this: /media/sda1, /media/sda2,...,/media/sdb1, /media/sdb2,...
See picture: http://www.futuredesktop.org/feisty-2/install_error3b.png

e) The patititioner started formating the partitions but it crashed after 50 seconds.
See picture: http://www.futuredesktop.org/feisty-2/install_error3c.png

The show is cancelled !

See:
/var/log/syslog : http://www.futuredesktop.org/feisty-2/syslog2.txt
and
/var/log/installer/partman : http://www.futuredesktop.org/feisty-2/partman2.txt
-----

I will try again tomorrow ;-)

So long,
  // moma
     http://www.futuredesktop.org

I encountered the exact same problem, screen scrambles after choosing keyboard layout.

I have been plagued by the same debconf problem in all post Herd2 daily amd64 builds (which are my interest).

The wonderful workaround described here allowed me to proceed, but then I stumbled again in the same error depicted in 3c.png

May the bug fairy come to your dreams so you wake up with a solution :-)

I ran a check cd, and no failures appeared.

While trying to run ubiquity, it fails after asking user details, and just before gparted is lauched.
I attached the log files.

Yesterday I dloaded both live and alternate 0117 builds for X64 and tested them first in VMware.

The live x64 CD (after doing the debconf thing) hangs during partitioning. Rebooting the live CD showed that the virtual HD was partitioned correctly but not formatted (ext3 + swap). The problem must be in formatting.

Then, (my the first time with feisty alt), I attempted the alternate x64 install in VMware. It worked fine and installation was perfect. After rebooting, there were some minor glitches, but it worked.

Then I thought the alternate cd is the answer. I attempted installation in my actual harddisk (which includes 2 more ntfs partitions). The text installer did not let me select the free space for partitioning and got me running in circles without letting me go back in the previous installation screens. Therefore the text installer has problems itself in the case of existing partitions on the disk. Today I got me a new sata disk and will attempt installing the alt cd on it.

My humble opinion is that a flawless version of the text installer should first be developed and then converted to a GTK front end. Also my impression is that this thread contains more than one bugs and it thus should be divided in several bug reports. Please advise accordingly what we should do.

The screen-scrambling ubiquity crash described above also happens when attempting to install in the VirtualBox virtual machine. I have tested this only with the Windows version of VirtualBox. The virtual machine was configured with about 250 MB of RAM and 16 MB of video memory. In theory this will be reproducible wherever VirtualBox can be run.

Are you using the latest daily CD? There seems to be a lot of activity around ubiquity now, I think development is moving along at a pretty rapid pace.

"Error 1" is bug #73955
"Error 2" is bug #76976
In general, please file separate bugs for separate issues.