Ubuntu Wiki

Summary

This page is for discussion related to Wubi development in the Intrepid cycle.

Release Note

Further improve the user experience when using Wubi.

Kernel Related Changes

• ntfs-3g fsck (VERY IMPORTANT!!!)

• Loopinstallation speed: (http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/1/9/50)

• Loopinstallation robustness (https://bugs.launchpad.net/wubi/+bug/204133),

• Remounting of loopfiles (https://bugs.launchpad.net/wubi/+bug/201750)

• Remounting of ntfs3g (https://bugs.launchpad.net/wubi/+bug/186117)

• Online resizing (in particular squeezing of ntfs partition while it is mounted and even hosting /)
• Hibernation with swap files (double check suspend with fuse filesystem)
• fallocate in ntfs/vfat
• native ntfs installations (last time I checked szaka mentioned it was 2 years away)

Possible New Features

• d-i support (i.e. same hooks as lupin-casper)
• Add bittorrent support to built-in download manager
• Built-in cdburner (need to evaluate CD burning libraries)
• Bootable USB device with ISO with casper-rw
• HD-media like installation from HD (Target empty partitions?).
• Grub2 (as recommended by bean123)
• Better build scripts (nsis is available in the repositories)
• Support for "large" distros such as ubuntu studio or edubuntu (support separate add-on CD directly? or leave it as pos-installation task? shall we automate such tasks somehow?)
• support DVD
• Use resizable image files (LVM or simply 4GB zeroed + nGB sparse, or qcow2 type of images or images that are contiguous for the first 4GB and sparse for nGB)
• Support for "native" installations (installation inside a folder, no loopfile)
• "My Documents" bookmark pointing to the appropriate windows folder (migration-assistant?)
• Add "Use existing ISO" button, to use a pre-downloaded ISO (at the moment ISO and wubi.exe can be placed in the same folder, but it is not too obvious).

UI Changes

• Can we further simplify the interface?
• Changes to the accessibility page
• Do we want to have advanced options?
• Possiblility of a frontend rewrite in python or c++ and such

Porting Wubi to other platforms

• Could use a native installation approach (installation inside a folder, no loopfile)
• lubi (wubi for linux)
• mubi (wubi for mac)

Porting Wubi To Debian

• Requires D-I hooks.

• Requires porting upstream all the changes to initramfs-tools, grub & co, sysvinit scripts, caspre/d-i initrd hooks, lupin-support.

• Investigate the opportuinty of a tighter integration with the win32-loader project (at the moment it does netinstallation only).

Migration Tools (loopinstallation -> real partition)

• To be discussed in separate session:
• Support for loopinstallations within ubiquity (it should detect existing loopinstallations and offer to migrate them)
• Simplified migration GUI.

Migration Page Mockup

Action:
 * Migrate the existing Wubi installation to a real Partition
 * Install Ubuntu
 
Install into:
 * Free space in hard disk #1 (sda, 8GB) 
 * Free space in hard disk #2 (sdb, 6GB)
 * Empty partition #2 of hard disk #1 (sda2, 26GB)
 * Empty partition #5 of hard disk #1 (sdab, 12GB)
 * Advanced Mode

Free up space for the new installation:
 [Resize an existing partition] [Delete an existing disk/partition] 

The install-into list only contains safe items, I.E. items that do not contain any file and are large enough. For instance, if disk #1 is in use, and the user wants to dedicate the full disk #1 to the installation, he will have to click on "Delete an existing disk/partition", delete disk #1 and then select "Free space in hard disk #1" which will appear in the install-into list. This is safer and clearer than merging the two operations into a single action such as "Install into disk #1", as in current ubiquity dialog. In particular, with the above suggestion, it is not possible to accidentally overwrite/delete any file unless the user explicitly selects "Delete an existing disk/partition" or (s)he uses the "Advanced Mode".

Resize partition dialog:
 Squeeze [partition #1] in [disk #1]
 to 5GB [ =====|========= ] and  free up 10GB
 -----------------------------------------------------
 Partition Info: /dev/sda1
 Total size: 15GB
 In use: 4GB
 Label: mytarget
 Filesystem: NTFS
 Files: WINDOWS, temp, Program Files, RECYCLER
 -----------------------------------------------------
 [Resize Partition] [Cancel]

Delete partition dialog:
 Delete: [partition #1 | all partitions] in [disk #1] 
 -----------------------------------------------------
 Partition Info: /dev/sda1
 Total size: 15GB
 In use: 4GB
 Label: mytarget
 Filesystem: NTFS
 Files: WINDOWS, temp, Program Files, RECYCLER
 -----------------------------------------------------
 [Delete Partition] [Cancel]

Advanced Mode (same as ubiquity):

• Overwrite an existing disk/partition #skip disk/partitions where wubi is installed
• Create multiple mountpoints

Brainstorm

[http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=Wubi&ordering=mostvotes Wubi in brainstorm]

Outstanding Issues for 8.04.1

Most have already fixes committed, but need to be tested, approved and released.

• Bug #217348 Incorrect disk order detection generates wrong menu.lst
• Bug #222690 install failed during "import document and setting" at 88% - French windows XP
• Bug #224311 grub4dos gets jammed with the message "Turning On Gate A20"
• Bug #204128 After install completed bar wasn't all green and installer hung
• Bug #136682 File with non-C/special characters in host computer disappear
• Bug #226622 Wubi has unclear error message on NTFS dirty flag
• Bug #224697 Disable hibernation if swap is on file
• Bug #223250 Country detection is wrong when country name is localized in the registry
• Bug #217593 If the installer fails or is aborted, users can end up in Live CD Desktop, which is confusing
• Bug #207137 Wubi fails to install from my cd-rw but does from my dvd-rw
• Bug #230703 Casper only scans vfat filesystems for cow files
• Bug #230716 Allow casper to use a squashfs filesystem within an arbitrary path

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec