Help develop Ubuntu's Installer

Rich43 · 31 Oct 2007 at 18:27

I have a personal problem with Ubuntu 7.10 which I think is a pretty frustrating issue and it is pretty much the only reason I use OpenSuse (Its a nice distro but I like Ubuntu/Debian based distros more).

The nice thing about Linux is that you can find something that needs improving, code it, submit a patch.

Now, In Ubuntu 7.10 the installer appears to lack mdadm raid support (The raid partitions do not show up at all!), I am not sure about other raid's like intel, nvidia etc aswell (perhaps you guys can fill me in?). I believe it used to work in previous versions of Ubuntu until they decided to write their own partition editor.

I have some programming experience with python and various other languages and I think with some help/feedback I can get a patch created, perhaps some other coders here might want to help aswell? Just a note, Ubuntu's installer program is called ubiquity.

I have grown a love for my raid configuration and I don't want to do without it, because of its astonishing speed and easier file system management

Perhaps we could make raid setups easy to create with Ubuntu.

brummie · 1 Nov 2007 at 00:08

You could just but a proper RAID controller.

Mine doesnt need drivers and works fine with ubuntu. I have read somewhere they try not to support onboard RAID chips as they aint really worth it, or did i dream that? Not sure, anyway......

you do have the option to set up RAID in the installer when you select manual partitioning or you used to be able too. What level RAID was you looking at setting up?

Cob · 1 Nov 2007 at 12:37

I haven't tried my Intel RAID on Gutsy yet, but I know that it didn't work with Feisty.

Rich43 · 1 Nov 2007 at 22:40

brummie said:
You could just but a proper RAID controller.

Mine doesnt need drivers and works fine with ubuntu. I have read somewhere they try not to support onboard RAID chips as they aint really worth it, or did i dream that? Not sure, anyway......

you do have the option to set up RAID in the installer when you select manual partitioning or you used to be able too. What level RAID was you looking at setting up?

Used to be able to. I'm perfectly happy with not caring about on board raid and just using Linux software raid... To be perfectly honest, Linux Software Raid is just as good as any other raid. I had a /dev/md0 drive set up and the Ubuntu installer didn't show it up at all (I guess its hard coded to look for hda/sda etc). On board raid is over rated, its not really even a hardware raid.

LeperousDust · 2 Nov 2007 at 00:54

They don't support FakeRAID becuase it isn't worth it, you can set your own software RAID (the same as fakeRAID without proprietary drivers) up yourself if you wan't your OS installed on a RAID partition. It's better this way, but the only downside is i'm not sure what you do when using windows and ubuntu on the same FakeRAIDed partition. It boils down to windows needing silly drivers to support their software fakeRAID. Have a scout around the forums though should help you...

Rich43 · 2 Nov 2007 at 01:27

The linux software raid is open source and anyone is free to start a driver project

I just put windows xp on a spare old 120GB drive.. I like linux so much that I don't let windows have my raid!

Let me know if anyone finds a project that solves the windows problem because I am a bit interested in some interoperability.

LeperousDust · 2 Nov 2007 at 03:59

Whats your problem then? You definately dont need to use fakeraid then if theres only ubuntu on the two hard drives. Lookup fakeraid first, the reason they took it out of development is because its uselss... Ubuntu can already software raid from kernel, why would you want another driver layer inbetween?

//Edit: In fact there read that.

matja · 2 Nov 2007 at 08:21

I've used debootstrap to install Ubuntu (and Debian) into RAID schemes that the installer doesn't support. The installer doesn't seem to like me anyway

This method is far more flexible and can me used to setup netboot environments and vm installations in image files, etc.

setup your block device on which to store the root fs :

ie : mdadm --assemble --auto=md /dev/md0 /dev/sd{a,b,c,d}1
or : dmraid -ay

optionally LVM2 it up (it's nice), mkfs, and mount and run debootstrap :

Code:

mke2fs -j /dev/md0
mount /dev/md0 /mnt/ubuntu -o data=journal,noatime
debootstrap --arch i386 gutsy /mnt/ubuntu http://ubuntu.virginmedia.com/archive/
cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/ubuntu /etc
LANG= chroot /mnt/ubuntu /bin/bash
apt-get update
apt-get install ubuntu-desktop linux-image mdadm dmraid lvm2
update-initramfs
exit
cp /mnt/ubuntu/{initrd*,vmlinuz*} /boot/

Rich43 · 2 Nov 2007 at 16:47

LeperousDust said:
Whats your problem then? You definately dont need to use fakeraid then if theres only ubuntu on the two hard drives. Lookup fakeraid first, the reason they took it out of development is because its uselss... Ubuntu can already software raid from kernel, why would you want another driver layer inbetween?

//Edit: In fact there read that.

Yes, Fakeraid is useless but Fakeraid isnt the same as a linux software raid.
with a linux software raid, you use the mdadm tool to create and manage it.
"Ubuntu can already software raid from kernel" <-- the Ubuntu GUI installer does not support this anymore, you try it in the Ubuntu 7.10 Live CD Installer.

matja said:
I've used debootstrap to install Ubuntu (and Debian) into RAID schemes that the installer doesn't support. The installer doesn't seem to like me anyway
This method is far more flexible and can me used to setup netboot environments and vm installations in image files, etc.

setup your block device on which to store the root fs :

ie : mdadm --assemble --auto=md /dev/md0 /dev/sd{a,b,c,d}1
or : dmraid -ay

optionally LVM2 it up (it's nice), mkfs, and mount and run debootstrap :

Code:

mke2fs -j /dev/md0 mount /dev/md0 /mnt/ubuntu -o data=journal,noatime debootstrap --arch i386 gutsy /mnt/ubuntu http://ubuntu.virginmedia.com/archive/ cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/ubuntu /etc LANG= chroot /mnt/ubuntu /bin/bash apt-get update apt-get install ubuntu-desktop linux-image mdadm dmraid lvm2 update-initramfs exit cp /mnt/ubuntu/{initrd*,vmlinuz*} /boot/

Yes, thats the workaround but I want the GUI installer to be able to set up and install Ubuntu on a multiple device raid (mdadm) like OpenSuse can. I am tempted to try what you did myself.. at least I might end up with Ubuntu back on my box instead of OpenSuse.

In other news, I have been reading the python source code to Ubiquity and it looks like the problem is in the partman software package that ubiquity depends on. If theres anyone else here that can help, feel free to report back with any parts of the source code I should be looking at etc...

LeperousDust · 2 Nov 2007 at 19:35

Yeah installing on RAID from the LiveCD is a little strange, you use the LiveCD to manually setup your RAID then setup the mount points with the installation. Which i agree isn't so user friendly i suppose. But allowing users to use fakeraid i don't think is a good idea because its bad practice. But there are still solutions out there i suppose. A slightly better setup for Ubuntu wouldn't be bad, it could include some GUI tool ontop of mdadm and maybe LVM2 *that* would be pretty cool...

brummie · 3 Nov 2007 at 08:11

The alternate CD does the raid and the ecrypted volumes

LeperousDust · 3 Nov 2007 at 12:34

Damn, i've been doing it the hard way this whole time

Why the hell do i need an alternate CD for that? Surely that can be put in the regular too? That isn't much extra to ask? GOnna go check out what else i'm missing...

//Edit:

Ubuntu said:
Alternate Install CD

"The alternate install CD allows you to perform certain specialist installations of Ubuntu. It provides for the following situations: creating pre-configured OEM systems; setting up automated deployments; upgrading from older installations without network access; LVM and/or RAID partitioning; installs on systems with less than about 256MB of RAM (although note that low-memory systems may not be able to run a full desktop environment reasonably)."

I've found that, but where can i find what else the alternate CD does/doesn't do? I guess it's not a LiveCD? What do they mean by pre-configured OEM systmes? Just customising what apps get installed from the CD?

brummie · 3 Nov 2007 at 19:32

The alternate CD basically is a text based installer system.
Dunno if there is a list of differences

ByteJuggler · 4 Nov 2007 at 17:07

Aside: It's possible (or used to be possible - haven't checked recently) to install DMRaid support into the booted LiveCD to allow you to install onto a Soft/FaikeRAID partition. See here.

Rich43 · 6 Nov 2007 at 15:32

Last time I checked Ubuntu's 7.10 Alternate CD, It no longer supported all that fancy raid stuff, but I will look again soon + feel free to prove me wrong!

They made some pretty drastic changes to the partition editor in recent releases.

brummie · 7 Nov 2007 at 09:42

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/gutsy/release/

Alternate install CD

The alternate install CD allows you to perform certain specialist installations of Ubuntu. It provides for the following situations:

* creating pre-configured OEM systems;
* setting up automated deployments;
* upgrading from older installations without network access;
* LVM and/or RAID partitioning;
* installs on systems with less than about 320MB of RAM (although note that low-memory systems may not be able to run a full desktop environment reasonably).

Dj_Jestar · 7 Nov 2007 at 10:13

http://wubi-installer.org