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How to use all remaining available space on a disk?

Open zenlord opened this issue 1 year ago • 7 comments

Which ISO version are you using?

2024-10-01

The installation log

Irrelevant

describe the problem

Description of the issue

I wanted to use archinstall to install a host from scratch with 2 partitions. I found at least one config.json file which suggested I could set the 'size' key of a partition to a value of "100%". Using this value in a config.json with archinstall 2.8.6 results in an error referencing the 'size' key.

I also tried transposing this value into the new config format

"size": {
  "sector_size": {
    "unit": "B",
    "value": 512
  },
  "unit": "%",
  "value": 100
},

... but that also failed. I then settled for using an absolute value in GiB that comes close to what I want to achieve.

I have submitted a PR to update the sample-config.json in the git repo - would make sense to document this option (if it is available) in that file as well, as probably others will want to use such option as well.

zenlord avatar Oct 23 '24 15:10 zenlord

Just adding that I tried this as well with 'percent' and with 'Percent' as unit. Both made archinstall fail before showing the TUI.

zenlord avatar Oct 23 '24 18:10 zenlord

Why not use the Arch install menu to select partitioning and then press the spacebar on the disk you want to use? This is not a bug, it's just pure laziness. Time, research, and the right .config or manually setting up with the menu will get you your answers.

claudemods avatar Oct 23 '24 21:10 claudemods

If you want to use the same configuration to install multiple identical hosts, you value the option to set an option to the desired value in a single config file and avoid human mistakes. Additionally: several online examples indicate that this used to work in at least one older version and it does no longer work. That means this is a bug. Not laziness.

zenlord avatar Oct 23 '24 21:10 zenlord

Hmm maybe try using archinstall to setup and then copy the newely made .config it may have newer settings i dunno im no expert sorry for the way i spoke before

claudemods avatar Oct 24 '24 08:10 claudemods

I would like this option, too, so that we can setup servers with less effort on both virtual and physical platforms. It looks like this ability was removed last September at commit: https://github.com/archlinux/archinstall/commit/b141609990fa4f7305443ee6ea6fe8796604c539

andyfozzy avatar Nov 11 '24 03:11 andyfozzy

I second this. I just stumbled with this issue myself too.

vonpupp avatar Dec 16 '24 11:12 vonpupp

Curent behaviour is to rigid. Please give us back the ability to accept free space without defining it a priori.

Val avatar May 06 '25 18:05 Val