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[Steve Langasek <2062428@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Walter, you assigned this to livecd-rootfs, but that's a dead end.  The
memory consumption of the livecd is largely a property of the software
it runs.  Ubuntu and Kubuntu might both fail now on a system with 3GiB
of RAM, but any fix to get under that threshold is likely to be flavor-
specific and not a function of the image build system.

This is not necessarily a calamares issue, but I'm reopening a task
there so that it's somewhat on the radar of Kubuntu folks.

** Also affects: calamares-settings-ubuntu (Ubuntu)
   Importance: Undecided
       Status: New

** Changed in: livecd-rootfs (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Invalid

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2062428

Title:
  Kubuntu 24.04 daily builds - Install randomly hangs/fails/crashes on
  systems with less than ~3GB of RAM

Status in calamares-settings-ubuntu package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in livecd-rootfs package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid

Bug description:
  Since around introduction of Kernel 6.8 to Daily builds, installation
  of Kubuntu / Ubuntu / Ubuntu-Mate builds randomly hangs(mostly),
  crashes or fails on systems with less than 3GB of RAM.

  When the system hangs, VM indicates heavy CPU and CDROM usage. My bet
  is on Kernel killing itself trying to "juggle" data between OverlayFS
  and Filesystem cache without a way to swap-out since someone decided
  that removing zram-config from livefs was a good idea.

  When the system doesn't hang, I can see kernel OOM killing random
  processes like calamares, cryptsetup etc.

  I had 100% success of installing Kubuntu 24.04 daily on VMs with 3GB, 75% with 2.5GB and almost 0% on 2GB VMs.
  Lvecd installers prior to Linux 6.8 had no issues with 2GB VMs.

  Once the system is installed it functions satisfactory with 2GB.

  I believe adding zram-config to livefs/casper would allow installation
  on systems with only 2GB of RAM.

  Tested over a couple of months with many snapshots of 24.04 Daily
  builds for Ubuntu, Kubutu and Ubuntu-Mate on VirtualBox and KVM/Qemu
  with default settings except enabled EFI.

  PS,
  The issue is not unique to calamares but I am filing it here since that's what I was asked to do by people on #kubuntu-devel and to be honest at the moment I don't care about anything but being able to test Kubuntu images on small VMs.

  P.P.S
  Specific example #1 (bad):
  * Kubuntu snapshot from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/daily-live/20240418.1/
  * VirtualBox 7.1.16 - VM - Default Ubuntu Profile, Enable EFI, Adjust RAM to 2.5GB
  * Boot LiveCD, Choose Try option
  * Start Install with default settings
  * Observe Calamares existing mid install without any visual indication
  * Logs show OOM-Killer killing cryptsetup and Calamares

  Specific example #2 (Good):
  * Kubuntu snapshot from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/daily-live/20240418.1/
  * VirtualBox 7.1.16 - VM - Default Ubuntu Profile, Enable EFI, Adjust RAM to 2.5GB
  * Boot LiveCD, Choose Try option
  * >> Install zram-config, start zram-config service <<
  * Start Install with default settings
  * Observe Calamares finishing install

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