[Bug 1763738] [NEW] add NTFS module to GRUB EFI bootloader for installation ISO images

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

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The GRUB EFI bootloader that is used by the current Ubuntu ISOs only
appears to include support for the FAT/FAT32 and ISO9660 file systems.

This creates issues for people who create USB bootable media from the
ISO and plan to add persistence onto it, as they are only able to do so
using FAT32 as the file system, which limits the persistent partition
size to 4GB (due to this filesystem's limitations).

Considering that many motherboards manufacturers are adding NTFS boot
support to their UEFI firmware (for instance all intel NUC models
include it, as well as many boards from Gigabyte and other vendors), and
that, even if the UEFI firmware does not support native NTFS boot, it is
also easy to add that functionality (for instance Rufus, the Ubuntu-
recommended bootable USB media creation tool on Windows has such a
feature), not having NTFS support in the GRUB EFI bootloader included
with the Ubuntu ISOs is becoming problematic for Ubuntu users.

Evidence of this can be demonstrated with
https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/issues/1108 and I also was able to
replicate the issue when testing ubuntu-18.04-beta2-desktop-amd64.iso.

The NTFS GRUB module is a few KB in size, and should only require adding
'ntfs' during 'grub-mkimage' invocation, along with the 'fat' option
that should already be present. Therefore, we don't believe it should be
that problematic to do, and it would be great help for Ubuntu users
wanting to use persistence on USB media. For good measure, you may also
want to consider adding the 'exfat' module.

Thanks,

** Affects: grub-installer (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: bot-comment efi grub installation-media iso ntfs uefi
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add NTFS module to GRUB EFI bootloader for installation ISO images
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1763738
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