Bug#559796: debian-installer: doesn't recognize manual changes to disk contents
> > I noticed inside the partitioner that I couldn't create a /boot ext3
> > with extra-small journal.
>
> Personally I just use ext2 for /boot.
*g*
> > So I did that manually instead. But I couldn't
> > figure out any way to make the installer recognize that there was a
> > filesystem on that partition now, so that I could have selected for it
> > to not be formatted again, without rebooting the installer.
>
> So exiting to the menu and restarting partman did not work?
Exactly. Not even re-running that "Detect disks" thing helped ...
> It's possible that file system detection is only executed the first time
> partman in started.
>
> IIRC there is a flag /var/lib/partman/filesystems_detected (or something
> close to that). Possibly deleting that before restarting partman would do
> what you want. Could you verify that?
It's not completely clear to me what the logic of what is happening then
is, but yeah, it gets me the option to disable formatting for that
partition.
> > Given that the installer can't implement every configuration option one
> > could possibly think of, I think it would be nice if the manual fallback
> > would work without too much trouble.
>
> I see your point, but the challenge is to implement it in a way that does
> not confuse the hell out of users.
I see your point, but ... ;-)
Well - I guess a simple "forget everything I told you about
partitioning and filesystems and stuff" would actually be good enough,
so it would simply restart partitioning (etc.) from what it currently
finds on the disk(s). A restart of that step still would be far better
than a complete restart of the installation - and it's conceptually
simple enough to be understood from a three-line explanation.
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