WubiJaunty
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