Force format root partition

[spydon]

Since the system will end up in a weird state if the root partition isn't formatted we need to force check that partition for formatting.

[spydon]

Fixed in #580

[ciampix]

This "fix" prevented me to reinstall with a clean system without erasing the home dir!
When I have problems I usually start with the live system, mount the old root, delete all system dirs apart from /home and reinstall without formatting. This is easy and perfectly fine to me. Now I have to reinstall 22.04 and then upgrade to 24.04 ... not cool!

[ciampix]

As an alternative I suggest:

• check the file system
• delete all "system" dirs like /usr /dev /sys /etc /var /tmp /proc ... etc.
  AFAIK non "system" dirs should not interfere with the system...

[ciampix]

... or move them out of the way in /old or such ...

[spydon]

@ciampix that workflow is not supported by subiquity (and I'm fairly certain that it isn't something that they want to support since it involves too many uncertainties). What I'd recommend is that you keep your /home directory in a separate partition instead.

[ciampix]

Sadly, that means a huge step back for me. As a volunteer, (= totally for free) I am supporting Linux users since more than 10 years now with a weekly free service from my local Linux User Group called "Sportello Linux" (Italian for "Linux Helpdesk", see https://www.linuxtrent.it/iniziative/sportello-linux/). As I said earlier that small flag was very useful to make a "clean" reinstall Linux for users. Just yesterday, for example, a user messed up her upgrade from 22.04 to 24.04. I reinstalled 22.04 and then upgraded to 24.04 for just double the time in respect of just installing the 24.04 version: it was the only simplest way. And no, you just can't convert a single root partition into root+home without losing hours and hours for moving partitions back (in a potentially very dangerous operation), the users and I usually have not so much spare time.

[ciampix]

BTW: many commercial OS have the option "reinstall keeping users' data". The Linux equivalent is to "keep the /home dir". In Ubuntu, manually, that was possible until 22.04 but not anymore. When one use the "manual" partitioning, it is supposed that one knows what one is doing.

[spydon]

BTW: many commercial OS have the option "reinstall keeping users' data". The Linux equivalent is to "keep the /home dir". In Ubuntu, manually, that was possible until 22.04 but not anymore. When one use the "manual" partitioning, it is supposed that one knows what one is doing.

You'll have to request this option from Subiquity, this repo is only a frontend, and they requested that we remove it since they weren't going to support that operation due to everything that could go wrong when doing it that way.

It shouldn't take hours to create a separate /home partition btw, you just have to boot a live cd, remove all the system directories yourself, shrink the partition and then install that as /home and create a / partition from the remaining space in the installer.

[ciampix]

Thanks yes I was thinking in 2 dimensions. Obviously I can put the /home partition before / but unfortunately that is not ideal since you have to foresee the use of root and home partitions for users I (hope I) won't see in years ... I'll try to ask the subiquity repo devs for which operations can go wrong, since I really do not know: I never had problems in hundreds of installations...

[spydon]

This has been reported as an issue by someone else here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/subiquity/+bug/2071872 and
also has a discussion here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-desktop-provision/+bug/2058638
You can comment there, and press the button that says that it also affects you.

[ciampix]

A big fat thanks! Some of those who filed the BRs described the problem much better than me...