worst linux install ever

[WodeWarrior]

I have been using linux for many years now, and to date this was the worst install I have ever done. Not only only did I receive that stupid grub boot error, (which is absolutely ridiculous and should never have gotten through to final release) but the installer somehow formatted the wrong f'ing drive!!!!!!! Yes, I selected the drive I wanted formatted, yet for whatever unknown, inconceivable reason, it decided instead to format one of my storage drives. The "powers that be" need to worry less about their schedule and more about making sure things work properly before putting a final release out. Another thing. If there is an issue with a release, they should fix it and issue another release asap. Seriously. 11.04 was released over a month ago, and a fixed image isn't available? That is just sad. /rant

[de_koraco]

Re: worst linux install ever

Yeah, Ubiquity has the tendency to format the wrong drive, or, even worse, format your /home partition, although you specifically told it not to. Nothing beats my last bout with Fedora, though. Four successive installs, three times with a broken X due to trying to load ATI drivers, the last one with a broken package database due to RPM hell, and Gnome 3 fallback mode when I finally succeeded in installing fglrx.

[woodsmoke]

Re: worst linux install ever

Ummmm the last time that I had it format the wrong partition was not with "ubuntu" or "kubuntu" but with another "type of OS" not Windblows....

the SIMPLE way to not have an OS format "the wrong drive"....is....ummmmmm

to UNPLUG THE DRIVE!

no tickeee no laundry!

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

Re: worst linux install ever

And...btw ....just "who" is "they"...i mean are the developers on some other planet?

woodsmoke

[zebedeeboss]

Re: worst linux install ever

Ummmm the last time that I had it format the wrong partition was not with "ubuntu" or "kubuntu" but with another "type of OS" not Windblows....

the SIMPLE way to not have an OS format "the wrong drive"....is....ummmmmm

to UNPLUG THE DRIVE!

no tickeee no laundry!

woodsmoke

Linux Newb here (but not pc newb) 100% agree disconnect any drive not involved in the install, especially ones containing important data, it can be a PITA (not gonna write the full thing you work it out lol) but less of a pain than losing important data.

with regard to this release and its install process, from a newb point of view it was a very very slick process, easy to follow with no problems at all, but I do sympathise with WodeWarrior... hope you had some sort of backup going...

Zeb...

[Xinixs]

Re: worst linux install ever

C'mon guys, even though the guy is ranting he is 100% right. A bug that lets the installer format a wrong drive or partition is VERY BAD!!! I am a professional software tester myself, and bugs like these are showstoppers and should hold back a release. It's as simple as that. I have been using Kubuntu happily over the past 6 months or so, but if I had come across that bug on my first installation, I would have posted a similar rant and then fled from Kubuntu as if it had the bubonic plague.

Least thing a community can do is recognize the problem, and not trying to come up with in my opinion lame excuses like 'disconnect the drive'. Do you seriously want someone to open their machine to unhook drives just to install an OS?

[WodeWarrior]

Re: worst linux install ever

My 1st linux install was Mandrake linux 7.0-2. Since then I have done many, many installs of various flavors and releases. In all those years I have never had these types of issues. Actually, this was the first major install issue I've had in several years, but none have ever touched a partition they shouldn't have until yesterday. (well, except for the one time I reinstalled Wintendo 98 when I was still dual booting, but that Window's fault. I also only had 1 HDD at the time and not 3 like the machine I was installing to last night.)
Unfortunately there was permanent data loss. Most of it was backed up in other areas as much of it had been burned to cd/dvd over the years, however anything recent was lost, and some of that was important and/or irreplaceable.
@woodsmoke; I thought it was obvious who "they" were. "The powers that be" generally refers to the people who make the decisions, which in this case is likely some pencil pushing, clock watching, moron at Canonical who decided an on time release was more important than getting it done right. Also, why should anyone need to partially dismantle their machine prior to an install? (that is a rhetorical question btw)
The installer is quite likely THE most important piece of software on an install disc. It SHOULD be THE most STABLE program on the ENTIRE install disc. If there are known issues with it involving the formatting of the wrong drive, then they should not include it in a final release until such time as issues like that are gone.

[wizard10000]

Re: worst linux install ever

I agree with WodeWarrior. ubiquity in Natty is just terrible and I've seen the same problems myself but didn't lose any data.

ubiquity before Natty gave you a list of proposed disk actions and one more option to bail out on them before committing changes to disk - I had a Natty daily build start formatting partitions before I hit the commit button.

@woodsmoke - I shouldn't *have to* disconnect any drive to install an operating system. If I inadvertenly tell the installer to blow away the wrong partition shame on me, but an installer that causes data loss isn't a feature, it's a bug - and a fairly significant one at that

If I'm doing a disk setup in expert mode it shouldn't matter whether I have one partition or 50 - the installer should perform the actions I specify on the partition I specify.

I expect some things to not work right especially since *buntu releases are event driven, not "we'll release when it's ready" - but an installer that blows away the wrong partition is a fairly serious bug - and OP and I are not the only two people who've seen it

[bsniadajewski]

Re: worst linux install ever

I agree with wizard and WodeWarrior also. Though I've never clean-installed Natty (I apt-get dist-upgrade-ed from Maverick)and naever had run into this issue, a hugebug like this should be rectified before release, maybe in the alpha stage.

[kubicle]

Re: worst linux install ever

Can someone post a link to the bug report, I'd like to see if there is any activity on it (I agree it's a critical bug, but of course the devs can only fix it if they are aware of it...I would assume this doesn't happen on every install or surely we would have heard more complaints of it here and elsewhere.)

I'm not a big fan of ubiquity (the GUI installer). Like most Canonical code, it doesn't really live up to the competition IMHO...especially on the QA department.

I've never had any problems with the Alternate CDs text mode installer.

[wizard10000]

Re: worst linux install ever

Launchpad's search engine appears to be on holiday

[woodsmoke]

Re: worst linux install ever

Removed the post because of the next post about install to a machine with two drives.

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

Installed Kubu over PCLos and not over TinyMe(external hd).

Ok WodeWarrior presented what I would call a "pretty problem" and thought that I would test it using the same methods that I've used since Xandros days.

a) I chose two hard drives, both SCSI(the ribbon cable ones), one of them a 10 gig and the other a 4.3 gig. I always use different sized drives so that there can be absolutely no possibility of getting things mixed up. The different sizes are obvious, no matter what letter designations the installer gives them.

b) The 10 gig had PCLOS installed thereupon and the 4.3 gig had TinyME on it.(TinyME btw is a VERY interesting distro and has a LOT of very nice "little touches". Folks might give it a quick install to see the fine work that has been done on it.)

c) The 10 gig was plugged into the normal ribbon cable from the mobo and the 4.3 gig was placed in an external drive box and attached with a usb cable. The cabling "should" make no difference to the installer.

d) I then turned on the external drive and confirmed that it was, indeed running and also then turned on the ten gig and it booted and saw TinyMe as an external drive and I could see the file system in it.

e) I then "safely removed" the 4.3 gig through software and shut the system down after placing the Kubu Natty downloaded 15 April 2011 cd in the tray.

f) I then turned on the external drive and verified that it was, indeed, running and turned the tower on and the Kubu disk ran and presented the normal options of installing etc.

g) I chose the install option and after the normal yada, yada i was presented with the partitioner and it offered, as usual to install on the first hard drive that it found. This was clearly labled SCSI"6" (that is SCSI 6).

As a check I did not accept the normal guided option and went to "manual".

In "manual" I saw both drives the ten gig labled SCSI6 and the 4.3 gig labled SCSI7.
I then backed out of the manual install, had to go through two screens to the "long big" interactive box which presented me with the partitioner, and I selected that.

h) When I was back at the partitioner screen I chose the guided option to install to all of the SCSI6.

PLEASE NOTE: In this screen there was no mention of "another drive". Soooo I imagine that there could be a possibility of a bug being there but this particular test did not expose it.

i) The normal install ensued.

j) At the end, I closed, ejected the Kubu cd and rebooted.

k) After boot I was in Kubuntu and saw the external drive as an external drive, and just as before, I could browse the TinyMe file system.

i) I then "safely removed" TinyME by software and shut down.

j) I then removed the usb plug from the computer and started up again and found a normal Kubuntu. I shut down again.

k) I then unplugged the Kubuntu drive from the ribbon cable, and then removed the TinyME drive from the external box and plugged TinyMe into the ribbon cable for the tower and rebooted.

Note: there is the possibility, I guess, of the drive being incorrectly jumpered, (possibly as a "slave" and a "master", and, I guess it is possible that somehow the installer could then see the two drives as one drive. However, I would not call that particular situation a fault of the installer, but a situation of the jumpering.

And, also, I guess that it might be possible that the installer might not be able to distinguish between SATA drives, but I've not run across it before(although I am sure that someone will correct me on that! )

l) I was presented with TinyME again, booted and am typing therefrom.

So... I don't know. I'm a simple guy, but I found nothing wrong with the installer. The normal red and blue bars are there, the normal text is there and it presented the normal options as it has always.

HOWEVER, I was sipping a ten cane rum 'n coke whilst conducting this exercise, but then I'm always doing that so we could take it as an external variable which is considered a......CONSTANT!!!

The gentle reader can take from the above what he or she wishes.

BTW again....TinyMe really is a very nice distro and for all you distro fiddlers out there, you might give it a run.


woodsmoke

[WodeWarrior]

Re: worst linux install ever

BTW, I'll be going back to 10.10 at least for the foreseeable future. 11.04's install issues are a show stopper as far as I'm concerned. I now have many hours of reconstructing what data I can on my now borked storage drive (there was over 600 GB of data on that drive) and am not in the mood to try and fix natty's issues. (don't have the time either) At least 10.10 is reasonably stable.
for those who may be interested in the specifics of my rig:
Asus M4N78 pro mobo
Athlon 9850 black edition
4 GB 1033 DDR2
120 GB ATA 133 Maxtor HDD for main drive
2 1TB Hitachi deskstars
LG 16x dvd writer
For those wondering why I don't have th OS installed to one of the SATA drives, well, I don't really require what little speed increase it would give me, and I would feel worse about not using a perfectly good drive for something. And 120 GB is more than sufficient for the OS and temporary storage.

[Teunis]

Re: worst linux install ever

Really weird how so many have an easy install without great problems or any problems at all and then there's that one system that goes tits up.
So far I've done two fresh 11.04 installs, one 32bit and one 64bit, and a couple of upgrades and saw no issues except bluetooth had to be restarted manually on one.
But I always do the partitioning as a separate task from *parted and prior to starting the install, it just gives that much more control.