Start from terminal without installing bootloader:
sudo --preserve-env=DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS,XDG_DATA_DIRS,XDG_RUNTIME_DIR sh -c 'ubiquity -b -d'
Get more options
ubiquity --help
There is no obvious way to prevent the installer from reformatting swap space.
This holds most propable for Debian and Ubuntu as well - nevertheless, I encountered it on Linux Mint
The tool drawing as packaged for Linux Mint does not open files given on the command line. When started from a shell, the first error is
Error opening this file. /usr/bin/drawing isn't an image.
which looks pretty much like a bug itself - meaning maybe the root cause of the problem. This made me look at the details of the but titled “Editing a file also tries to open the binary”.
I downloaded the source package and read out CURRENT_BINARY_PATH, which was /app/bin/drawing
at the time of this writing.
So the solution was to make a symlink and call the binary by the full (fake) path:
ln -s usr /app /app/bin/drawing <imagefile>
OH MY GOD!!!