Starting here before possibly posting to relevant list serve . . . I just tried to run a fresh install of Leap 16 using the “agama installer” . . . on a 1 TB nvme drive that has two other linux systems installed on it.
Choosing “custom” takes me to a window showing the existing partitions with various options to “do not modify” “shrink” or “delete” . . . but the large “unused space” is showing as greyed out. No option to “add partition” or “edit” the unused space as with the recently used TW installer that seems to have a “GParted” capacity, the agama installer does not.
I clicked through all of the various menus and even tried selecting “Slow roll” but that made no difference; apparently I can wipe the whole drive, OR I can select from among already created and being used partitions to run the install into?
The question would be what is the purpose of offering “custom” if it isn’t really “custom”??
Other problem, no “quit the installer” button . . .??? Had to power down with the power button to get out of the agama paradigm.
Seems like a “dev” thing? Report to one of the list serves or file a bug report? I had to have used this installer in the recent past, perhaps re-installing Leap on my '12 Mac Pro, into existing partition . . . but the general features of the installer seemed “new” to me; perhaps I figured out how to modify the repos from 15.6 and didn’t use the agama installer. But it seems to be “all” or “whatever you already have created” rather than being able to add fresh partitions from unused space.
By design, or just not thoroughly parsed through for the “custom installer”??
Thanks for the reply and that information. I gave it a fast scan, couldn’t tell whether it would provide ways to “add partitions” from the unused space, or not.
I am not new to running installations, so I went through the installer process, but found no way to run an “advanced partitioner” type of install.
My “work around” to this was to boot to TW and use its GParted to create the two new partitions that I will hopefully be able to use with the agama installer to install Leap 16 into. I can get that something is “under development” but then why is the agama installer the only option to install Leap 16 with? Perhaps provide the previous installer as an option to choose from??
Note that if you’re not using GPT (ie, you’re using MBR), then there are some limitations as to what you can do in terms of the number of partitions (4 primary, or 3 primary and one extended, and the extended can only be 4 more IIRC - it’s been a while). So maybe if you’re using MBR, that’s why you can’t allocate more space.
Ah, I misunderstood - that was a VM with a blank drive for installation. I won’t have time to look again until late tomorrow or Monday at that scenario.
GPT. No worries on instant reply. I will be trying to run the install later today, now that I added the partitions for it via GParted, extra steps. etc.
OK, I just tried to run another install using the newly minted partitions that I created in GParted last night, again using “custom” install; but I would say that the installer still does not have the capacity to understand the fine nuances of selecting partitions, formatting them, and then flagging them for / or /home to install into.
The only options provided for the pre-existing partitions is to “do not modify,” “allow shrink” or “delete,” . . . nothing for “format” or “use as” . . . .
When I selected what should be the new /boot/efi partition, trying to pick “delete” . . . the installer was then still picking from various other partitions to run its install into, which would have “destructive implications” to the existing filesystems, that it can see are there . . . but still provides no options for installing into a partition for / . . . let alone, as as I was trying to do, share a larger partition with the already installed TW /home directory . . . i.e., not formatting that partition, but simply flagging it for installing the /home directory of the Leap 16 system.
Awhile back I was checking out the Fedora installer to try to add another system into my Mac Pro, but their installer had the same problem, ALL or nothing at all. It could only see the entire drive as its potential playground and could not see the possibility of playing with others within that drive.
Seems like the agama installer is one such installer . . . not “flexible” in the same manner as the TW installer that I just used a couple of times last week. For the regular end user who perhaps is only thinking of one system, sure it’s ready to go, but for the “advanced partitioner” --not ready for prime time.
Again, the lack of an “abort the install” button makes it unidirectional . . . no choice but to move forward in the install, with potential catastrophic effect on existing installs OR shut down the computer.
This part “The only options provided for the pre-existing partitions is to “do not modify,” “allow shrink” or “delete,” . . . nothing for “format” or “use as” . . . .” makes sense, as that’s all you’d want to do with a pre-existing partition, especially one that already had a file system in it. What you would do is either shrink them and use the new space, or delete them and reuse them as new partitions. Having a format option would happen after you’d done one of those, although it might make sense to be able to just unilaterally format them, although for new users that might be dangerous; they’d end up destroying their previous data by accident. By forcing them to take earlier steps to prove they didn’t want those partitions, it would be safer.
But if there’s no way to create a new partition setup like the old installer could do, that’s ridiculous.
And a lack of a way to get out of the installer - “reboot” or “quit” or “abort” - is ridiculous as well.
I once tried to install a version of Ubuntu that, if you went into the disk partitioner part, you couldn’t get out of it. It proved to me that Ubuntu never even bothered to test their installer, as you couldn’t possibly have missed that bug if it was tested at all.
System designers…meh… And I agree, “in development” is no excuse for laziness.
OK, I see what you’re saying now. You can select “Custom” with a previously installed OS, but you can only select “Allow shrink”, and it doesn’t give you the ability to create, for example, a separate /home partition unless one already existed previously.
You might report this via bugzilla as an enhancement request.
I can’t speak for the developers (since I’m not one), but I can see some logic in simplifying the partitioner like this - streamlining the installation process does make it more approachable, and it’s likely that these options are viable for those who are (for example) adding openSUSE to a system with Windows on it (I tried with a Leap 15.6 VM and a Windows 11 VM).
There’s always more than one opinion as to the “right” thing to do.
Nothing is committed (that I can see) before you actually click “Install” - so “aborting the installation” is accomplished by powering off the system.
Thanks for the confirmation on the issue . . . which I see as more than an “enhancement request” . . . . It may be “another way” to run an installation, but I had just run two “custom” installs on the same machine in the last week and what the agama installer seems to be offering under custom is like some kind of “AI” assist on what AI thinks should be done with the drive. As when I selected what I had set up in TWs GParted to be the /boot/efi partition, the installer took that choice and then “auto-completed” the rest of the install into whatever partitions it wanted. It was not “custom” in the sense that my installs of TW and Trixie were created by adding partitions and formatting them as I had decided . . . . In this case it seems like the installer was “taking over” the customization, which I could approve or not, it was going to do what it had decided. It’s “custom” but it’s another form of “guided” . . . .
@deano_ferrari Thanks for the thought on the TTY to cancel out of an installation . . . that idea didn’t occur to me, and don’t recall ever even seeing that suggested for dealing with installatioin problems . . . over the many years of posting problems on forums . . . . Still seems like the option to “abort the install” from within the installer, as is found on many installers, would be a “no brainer”???
Yes, I agree that it would be a good idea to have a button within the graphical installer environment. (I also decided to abort the installation the first time I used it.)
I suggest an “enhancement request” because it’s adding functionality to what is there (irrespective of what was there in previous or other installers).
Same with adding an “abort installation” button. It’s functionality that’s requested that’s not there, so I would class that an “enhancement” as well.
Alright gents . . . I’ll check that out . . . “enhancement request” . . . . Haven’t visited Bugzilla in awhile, is this filed against “agama installer” ???
ETA: I’d also suggest downloading the latest Agama installer from the linked repo in the build service, rather than the one from get.opensuse.org - make sure the issue is still present in that build (the date on it is today). I hadn’t noticed before that the one on get.opensuse.org is not current (at least, it doesn’t appear to be).
