[Bug 389194] Re: Poor choice of device for installing GRUB

[Craig Hansen]

I haven't given an Ubuntu installation the chance to screw up the choice in a while, but IMHO,
choosing a drive that makes the installation or the subsequent boot fail is NOT a good default.
If you're going to continue to insist that defaulting to installing grub to a different disk than
the pending system installation is the best choice, producing a warning that's about to take place
would be a modest improvement to the status quo.

It appeared to me that the drive numbers vary unpredictably from one boot to the next,
perhaps as things like CDROM drives and USB sticks are inserted or removed,
so choosing grub locations by drive number was challenging.

----- Original Message -----
From: Phillip Susi
Sent: 01/13/14 12:51 PM
To: craig.hansen at mail.com
Subject: [Bug 389194] Re: Poor choice of device for installing GRUB

The drive numbering is determined by the bios, and doesn't matter. What
matters is that there is no good way to choose a default location to
install grub to. It isn't right for you, but changing it to be right for
you would make it wrong for someone else, hence, wontfix. If you have
multiple drives in your system then you most likely will have to change
the grub install location. That is the down side of the broken PC bios
architecture. -- You received this bug notification because you are
subscribed to the bug report. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/389194
Title: Poor choice of device for installing GRUB Status in One Hundred
Papercuts: Invalid Status in “ubiquity” package in Ubuntu: Won't Fix Bug
description: My laptop runs Windows. But I booted up a Ubuntu LiveCD and
installed to a Flash Drive. Surprisingly, GRUB got put onto my Windows
hard drive instead of my Flash Drive. This was absolutely not what I'd
expect, because one reason for installing to a USB device is to be able
to have a portable Ubuntu installation. After Googling for a while I
found out that I had to use the "Advanced" button to select a different
location for installing GRUB. It would be much more new-user-friendly if
the step where you choose the device on which to install Ubuntu would
(1) automatically select the device you're installing to as the place to
put GRUB AND (2) Output a message something like "GRUB will be installed
on <your device>. Use the "Advanced" button to specify a different
location." To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/389194/+subscriptions

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Foundations Bugs, which is subscribed to ubiquity in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/389194

Title:
  Poor choice of device for installing GRUB

Status in One Hundred Papercuts:
  Invalid
Status in “ubiquity” package in Ubuntu:
  Won't Fix

Bug description:
  My laptop runs Windows. But I booted up a Ubuntu LiveCD and installed to a Flash Drive. Surprisingly, GRUB got put onto my Windows hard drive instead of my Flash Drive. This was absolutely not what I'd expect, because one reason for installing to a USB device is to be
  able to have a portable Ubuntu installation. After Googling for a while I found out that I had to use the "Advanced" button to select a different location for installing GRUB.

  It would be much more new-user-friendly if the step where you choose the device on which to install Ubuntu would
  (1) automatically select the device you're installing to as the place to put GRUB
  AND
  (2) Output a message something like "GRUB will be installed on <your device>. Use the "Advanced" button to specify
  a different location."

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/389194/+subscriptions