Added BlockDevice.largest_free_space and BlockDevice.free_space (iterator). Also added additional supported filesystems to parted. Apparently the online manpages doesn't agree with the local manpages, my previous statement that these gets ignored is false so added those in and removed some that isn't supported by my local manpages, 'ufs' for instance.

archinstall/lib/disk.py

@@ -15,16 +15,27 @@ MBR = 0b00000010
 
 def valid_fs_type(fstype :str) -> bool:
 	# https://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/html_node/mkpart.html
+	# Above link doesn't agree with `man parted` /mkpart documentation:
+	"""
+		fs-type can
+		be  one  of  "btrfs",  "ext2",
+		"ext3",    "ext4",    "fat16",
+		"fat32",    "hfs",     "hfs+",
+		"linux-swap",  "ntfs",  "reis‐
+		erfs", "udf", or "xfs".
+	"""
 
 	return fstype in [
-		"ext2",
-		"fat16", "fat32",
-		"hfs", "hfs+", "hfsx",
-		"linux-swap",
-		"NTFS",
-		"reiserfs",
-		"ufs",
 		"btrfs",
+		"ext2",
+		"ext3", "ext4", # `man parted` allows these
+		"fat16", "fat32",
+		"hfs", "hfs+", # "hfsx", not included in `man parted`
+		"linux-swap",
+		"ntfs",
+		"reiserfs",
+		"udf", # "ufs", not included in `man parted`
+		"xfs", # `man parted` allows this
 	]
 
 
@@ -335,6 +346,25 @@ class BlockDevice:
 		for device in output['blockdevices']:
 			return device['rota'] is True
 
+	@property
+	def free_space(self):
+		for line in SysCommand(f"parted --machine {self.path} print free"):
+			if 'free' in (free_space := line.decode('UTF-8')):
+				_, start, end, size, *_ = free_space.strip('\r\n;').split(':')
+				yield (start, end, size)
+
+	@property
+	def largest_free_space(self):
+		info = None
+		for space_info in self.free_space:
+			if not info:
+				info = space_info
+			else:
+				# [-1] = size
+				if space_info[-1] > info[-1]:
+					info = space_info
+		return info
+
 	def has_partitions(self):
 		return len(self.partitions)
 

archinstall/lib/user_interaction.py

@@ -567,6 +567,9 @@ def valid_parted_position(pos :str):
 	if pos[-3:].lower() in ['mib', 'kib', 'b', 'tib'] and pos[:-3].isdigit():
 		return True
 
+	if pos[-2:].lower() in ['kb', 'mb', 'gb', 'tb'] and pos[:-2].isdigit():
+		return True
+
 	return False
 
 def partition_overlap(partitions :list, start :str, end :str) -> bool:
@@ -617,7 +620,7 @@ def manage_new_and_existing_partitions(block_device :BlockDevice) -> dict:
 
 	mountpoints = {}
 	block_device_struct = {
-		"partitions" : []
+		"partitions" : [partition.__dump__() for partition in block_device.partitions.values()]
 	}
 	# Test code: [part.__dump__() for part in block_device.partitions.values()]
 	# TODO: Squeeze in BTRFS subvolumes here
@@ -648,9 +651,18 @@ def manage_new_and_existing_partitions(block_device :BlockDevice) -> dict:
 				# https://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/html_node/mkpart.html
 				# https://www.gnu.org/software/parted/manual/html_node/mklabel.html
 				name = input("Enter a desired name for the partition: ").strip()
+			
 			fstype = input("Enter a desired filesystem type for the partition: ").strip()
-			start = input("Enter the start sector of the partition (percentage or block number, ex: 0%): ").strip()
-			end = input("Enter the end sector of the partition (percentage or block number, ex: 100%): ").strip()
+			
+			start = input(f"Enter the start sector (percentage or block number, default: {block_device.largest_free_space[0]}): ").strip()
+			if not start.strip():
+				start = block_device.largest_free_space[0]
+				end_suggested = block_device.largest_free_space[1]
+			else:
+				end_suggested = '100%'
+			end = input(f"Enter the end sector of the partition (percentage or block number, ex: {end_suggested}): ").strip()
+			if not end.strip():
+				end = end_suggested
 
 			if valid_parted_position(start) and valid_parted_position(end) and valid_fs_type(fstype):
 				if partition_overlap(block_device_struct, start, end):