I found that sudo cat /var/log/messages gave a very descriptive set of entries actually, but this won't do any good if the noob doesn't know to check the /var/log/messages in the first place.
I was recently testing out an Ubuntu 8.04 install on a Sony TZ191N and when I arrived to the step(4 of 7) where the installer would resize the Windows partition and install Ubuntu in the free space, it failed with the error message: "An error occurred while writing the changes to the storage devices. The resize operation has been aborted." the GUI provided no other way to see what was wrong. So I ran this command: sudo cat /var/log/messages which produced these messages: May 21 10:32:52 ubuntu ntfsresize: ERROR(95): Opening '/dev/sda1' as NTFS failed: Operation not supported May 21 10:32:52 ubuntu ntfsresize: The NTFS journal file is unclean. Please shutdown Windows properly before May 21 10:32:52 ubuntu ntfsresize: using this software! Note, if you have run chkdsk previously then boot May 21 10:32:52 ubuntu ntfsresize: Windows again which will automatically initialize the journal correctly. May 21 10:32:52 ubuntu partman: Error resizing the NTFS file system [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ So for the sake of the people trying Ubuntu for the first time, I'd like to suggest that the error dialog that results from this type of installation failure(see above) be more descriptive as to what the problem is (or have a details button that will show the output of /var/log/messages). This type of problem is very easily fixed by simply rebooting windows and then shutting it down normally. Just a thought. Thanks for the truly awesome distro!! Regards, Shannon VanWagner http://healthysystem.blogspot.com http://shannonvanwagner.com http://digg.com/users/bicep -- Resize dirty NTFS silently fails https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/39653 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is a direct subscriber. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
