Bugzilla – Bug 1215639
Provide the user with a choice of where they want their SWAP partition to be.
Last modified: 2023-10-24 06:30:10 UTC
When installing OpenSUSE with multiple internal drives, per https://forums.opensuse.org/t/how-to-transfer-swap-partition-to-os-drive-from-external/169015, the OSTW installer places the SWAP partition on a (seemingly random) secondary internal drive. I don't want this - if I don't select the other drives when asked, it shouldn't touch them (I realize the quoted post states I did, but it refers to a previous installation; I've tested both). Consequently, either don't put the SWAP partiton on another drive unless multiple have been selected (this is the reason for this issue's designation as a bug rather than an enhancement) or allow the user to choose separately where the SWAP partition should be without needing to use the expert partitioner.
Disks that you did not select for installation in the guided storage setup are not touched; I just tried to make sure. From those disks that you did select, if they are more than one, you are prompted which one to use for the root filesystem; because the root filesystem is special, and its location might have additional implications. The other filesystems that are being created are distributed on the eligible disks according to other restraints; /home (if you elect to create a separate one) as well as swap. As somebody on that forum thread remarked, using a different disk for swap should in many cases even come with a slight performance boost since it can be read and written in parallel with the disk that the root filesystem is on. If you want even more fine control, that's what the expert partitioner is there for. We cannot read a user's mind; but we have to take certain restrictions and requirements into account that partitions have to meet.
> Disks that you did not select for installation in the guided storage setup are not touched; I just tried to make sure. It *is* reproducible, at least for me: https://imgur.com/LKNTIJK
After looking at the video, I definitely see that swap from other disk is "mounted". It does not create another one on the selected root disk. IIUC, this is an expected behavior as reusing existing resources is preferred to wasting space on another disk "just because". But let's ask someone who can explain this.
BTW, honestly, the report is not really understandable without that video attached later plus logs are missing, please, read https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:How_to_Write_a_Good_Bugreport
(In reply to roke beedell from comment #2) > > It *is* reproducible, at least for me: https://imgur.com/LKNTIJK As already mentioned, what you can see in that video is that the installer is reusing an existing swap partition. Traditionally, that's preferred over creating just another swap. Historically, that is done even if the swap partition is not in the set of disks selected for installation. I understand that can come unexpected (in fact, we have bug#1175535 which reports basically the same), but is how the openSUSE installer has always worked. I fear the only workaround is to use the Expert Partitioner to refine the proposal of the Guided Setup.
(In reply to Ancor Gonzalez Sosa from comment #5) > > [...] but is how the openSUSE installer has always worked. My point here is that if we change that, the following week we will have a bug report titled "The installer is not longer able to find the swap partition it must reuse".
It's documented in the test here https://github.com/yast/yast-storage-ng/blob/9beddde24acf15f9265e38c1acda255d31c299c5/test/y2storage/proposal/devices_planner_test.rb#L682 I'm afraid we can't really document all the behavior as it's dynamic based on what it find on disk(s). Anyway, I believe that the explanation is now complete and if you want another behavior, you can always go to the Expert Partitioner and change it there. And before you ask: No, I'm sorry, we can't add explanatory texts in the UI and we can't support yet another check-box or radio-button for the guided setup. This would open for another and another additions here and there and it would end like this http://www.graphpaper.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/bru_main_screen.jpg
> BTW, honestly, the report is not really understandable without that video attached later plus logs are missing, please, read https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:How_to_Write_a_Good_Bugreport It's too large to upload here, and with the internet connection I have, just uploading it to Imgur was almost Hellish. I can't download any video editing packages currently to compress it. Archival changes 500 KiB at best. Apologies.
(In reply to Lukas Ocilka from comment #7) > It's documented in the test here > https://github.com/yast/yast-storage-ng/blob/ > 9beddde24acf15f9265e38c1acda255d31c299c5/test/y2storage/proposal/ > devices_planner_test.rb#L682 > > I'm afraid we can't really document all the behavior as it's dynamic based > on what it find on disk(s). > > Anyway, I believe that the explanation is now complete and if you want > another behavior, you can always go to the Expert Partitioner and change it > there. > > And before you ask: No, I'm sorry, we can't add explanatory texts in the UI > and we can't support yet another check-box or radio-button for the guided > setup. This would open for another and another additions here and there and > it would end like this > http://www.graphpaper.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/bru_main_screen.jpg Not even an explanation, perhaps beside the decision itself? Some explanatory text would not even come close to creating that poorly organized GUI depicted. If I had known, I would have been able to use the Expert Partitioner to delete the SWAP partition (probably, I've not tried).
(In reply to roke beedell from comment #8) > It's too large to upload here, and with the internet connection I have, just > uploading it to Imgur was almost Hellish. I can't download any video editing > packages currently to compress it. Archival changes 500 KiB at best. Please read that page. It describes how to report a bug in a way that is well-understandable and reproducible and explain why. We appreciate having all the info in the initial description already. A video can be easily replaced with screenshots. In this case two screenshots would do it.
(In reply to roke beedell from comment #9) > Not even an explanation, perhaps beside the decision itself? Some > explanatory text would not even come close to creating that poorly organized > GUI depicted. If I had known, I would have been able to use the Expert > Partitioner to delete the SWAP partition (probably, I've not tried). If you imagine how many user scenarios and their combinations the partitioning proposal has to do, it's nearly impossible to explain all of them in a single screen (help). There is nothing like a tooltip in YaST (and we don't plan to add it) as we currently work on a next generation Installer anyway. Plus there is nothing like a "reason" field (localized) in the proposal itself. Please try using Expert Partitioner.
(In reply to Lukas Ocilka from comment #11) > (In reply to roke beedell from comment #9) > > Not even an explanation, perhaps beside the decision itself? Some > > explanatory text would not even come close to creating that poorly organized > > GUI depicted. If I had known, I would have been able to use the Expert > > Partitioner to delete the SWAP partition (probably, I've not tried). > > If you imagine how many user scenarios and their combinations the > partitioning proposal has to do, it's nearly impossible to explain all of > them in a single screen (help). There is nothing like a tooltip in YaST (and > we don't plan to add it) as we currently work on a next generation Installer > anyway. Plus there is nothing like a "reason" field (localized) in the > proposal itself. Please try using Expert Partitioner. Apologies. I'll do that in future. I hadn't considered that workaround.
One more remark: Please notice that you can always use the automated storgage proposal as well as the result of the guided storage setup as a basis for further refinement in the expert partitioner. In many cases, that might be a lot easier than redoing the whole storage layout from scratch. When you start he expert partitioner during installation, it will ask you if you want to continue based on the proposed setup, or if you want to restart from scratch based on what is already on the disk. Until you actually perform the installation, the disks remain untouched; you can always re-read the old partition tables from your disks (there is a menu entry for that). You might want to experiment a bit with that in a virtual machine; I suggest you create a VM (e.g. in VirtualBox) and give it several virtual disks and then play with the whole thing to get a feeling how it behaves.
(In reply to Lukas Ocilka from comment #11) > (In reply to roke beedell from comment #9) > > Not even an explanation, perhaps beside the decision itself? Some > > explanatory text would not even come close to creating that poorly organized > > GUI depicted. If I had known, I would have been able to use the Expert > > Partitioner to delete the SWAP partition (probably, I've not tried). > > If you imagine how many user scenarios and their combinations the > partitioning proposal has to do, it's nearly impossible to explain all of > them in a single screen (help). There is nothing like a tooltip in YaST (and > we don't plan to add it). KDE's Dolphin shows a hierarchical structure (tree) with accompanying attributes (in this case, the explanation) by using a table structure. I'd be surprised if whatever graphical library is used for YaST didn't include that. We only need to explain the things that can be easily explained at first, surely? Why burden oneself trying to do every conceivable thing immediately? YaST's logic in this instance is unusually unintuitive, whereas in most other circumstances it's obvious, so I think we can consider this exceptional. > As we currently work on a next generation Installer anyway. Plus > there is nothing like a "reason" field (localized) in the > proposal itself. I understand the annoyance of localization, but, perhaps, naively, I'm expect that that shouldn't stifle innovations. At the very least because it's not crucial information, so localization wouldn't need to be a priority (nowadays, camera-based translators are ubiquitous, at least amongst the youth). (In reply to Stefan Hundhammer from comment #13) > You might want to experiment a bit with that in a virtual machine; I suggest > you create a VM (e.g. in VirtualBox) and give it several virtual disks and > then play with the whole thing to get a feeling how it behaves. That's not a bad idea. I'll indeed try that. Although the YaST installer provided in the Live images obviously isn't recommended for installation, I'd like to use that in a VM, so is it full-featured there? I have to ask, again, because this internet connection means I can need a full day to download a .ISO.
Please use one of the dedicated installation ISOs, not a live image: Those are unofficial and unsupported, and they are a neverending source of trouble. Use the Leap 15.5 DVD image: https://get.opensuse.org/leap/15.5/#download Yes, it's 4.1 GiB, but it contains pretty much everything. If you have a slow Internet connection at home, maybe check if you can use one in a public library, or if you have access to it, at a nearby university. With that kind of DVD image, you can do without an online connection. Write it to a USB stick and boot the installation with self-update=0 to avoid installer self-updates which are also downloaded from the Internet.
(In reply to Stefan Hundhammer from comment #15) > Please use one of the dedicated installation ISOs, not a live image: Those > are unofficial and unsupported, and they are a neverending source of trouble. > > Use the Leap 15.5 DVD image: > > https://get.opensuse.org/leap/15.5/#download > > Yes, it's 4.1 GiB, but it contains pretty much everything. If you have a > slow Internet connection at home, maybe check if you can use one in a public > library, or if you have access to it, at a nearby university. > > With that kind of DVD image, you can do without an online connection. Write > it to a USB stick and boot the installation with > > self-update=0 > > to avoid installer self-updates which are also downloaded from the Internet. I specified only to test the installer GUI itself in a VM with. I'd just like confirmation that it's exactly the same installer that the DVD and NetInstaller images use.
Yes, the installer is always the same. But live images are very different; the inst-sys is not an isolated environment, it's kind of mingled with the live system, and that's a problem.