Alternate Install Image Fails to Install Software [closed]

Question

I'm using the Ubuntu 11.10 alternate on a bootable usb drive because I want to encrypt my

entire hard drive. The computer is hooked up via LAN and has an active internet connection. Everything runs fine until I get to the part where it installs software, and then it fails. All I have selected is Ubuntu Desktop. I tried selecting others on the main menu and it still failed.

Previously, I had deselected all of them, and Ubuntu installed fine, but there was no GUI of any kind. I don't know why I cannot install software.

Answer 1

had a similar problem, always failed while installing the software. i tried to install a encrypted system in several ways: no lvm, no seperate swap, no network... nothing worked. i used a installation-medium created with lili. then i changed to a "old school" burned cd -> i could install ubuntu 11.10 again. maybe it will be of help for you.

Answer 2

I had the same problem, but I found a workaround. See bug #873409. Somehow, the extraction step of some packages fails and dpkg gives a 'disk full' error, even though there's plenty of space. When I installed the package manually and gave the -D10 flag to dpkg, it worked. -D10 is just supposed to give more debug information, so this looks like a bug in dpkg.

Workaround: When the installer fails: log in to a console from the installer environment.

chroot /target bash
apt-get -f install

Note which package failed to install

cd /media/cdrom/pool/main/<location of failing package>
dpkg -i -D10 failing_package.deb 2>/dev/null
apt-get -f install
exit

Hopefully apt-get now succeeds. Continue the installation procedure.

Be sure to exit the chroot shell, otherwise it might interfere with the installer because the target disk can't be unmounted.

Note that in my case the failing package was /media/cdrom/pool/main/l/linux/linux-headers-3.0.0-12_3.0.0-12.20_all.deb, which is part of the 'install the base system' installer step, so I had to retry that one first. Even though the error occured while installing the base system, the installer only showed it when trying to install the rest of the system.