[Bug 1759962] Re: Can not mount old hd after new installation because of multiple VGs found with the same name skipping xubuntu-vg

Bio Mon 1759962 at bugs.launchpad.net
Fri Mar 30 10:37:24 UTC 2018


To the group that produced this extremely short-sighted install
procedure - here is one thing that you can do to save your honor.

The procedure to get out of that described situation is so extremely
annoying waste of time for non-guru users that I think it is appropriate
to demand some remedy from the producer - you are faced here with a
situation where people can not access their data because of your
decision to use always the same name for a lvm volume group - I believe
that is enough motivation to put some true effort into this issue to
save the name "Ubuntu". Similar to a car producing company that has to
recall lots of cars because of some production error Ubuntu should
deliver some kind of repair script that comes with the installer.

Please add an option to the installer to make old Ubuntu installs that
were created with this installer accessible by changing the volume group
name and making appropriate changes to /etc/fstab and grub files - and
please TEST that with real people and real installations before!

It seems like nobody @Ubuntu puts some effort into testing these kind of real life scenarios. 
This lvm mis-configuration is such an obvious footgun that would have been easy to avoid if just one person tried to add an old system hard drive to a newly installed system - a very expected real life situation - many people do migrate to new systems with a new hard disk and then copying data from the old hard disk to the new one is a totally expected thing to happen. 

Please put more real life testing into your production workflows.

BTW there also should exist some kind of "migration assistant" that
would copy all the settings from an old $HOME - its kind of annoying
that these stupid things still have to be done manually, despite the
fact that it would be very easy for you to automate this. You are
missing one low hanging fruit to user happiness here.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1759962

Title:
  Can not mount old hd after new installation because of multiple VGs
  found with the same name skipping xubuntu-vg

Status in base-installer package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  This is an old one a a really totally destroying showstopper, it leads
  to this:

  Users after installing a new version of Ubuntu on a new hard disk can
  not access their files on the old hard disk because the lvm volume has
  THE SAME NAME! The procedure to rename the vg is absolutely not doable
  by an average user, much too complicated with editing grub.cfg etc.

  I am really disappointed by this. The installer makes it easy for
  users to encrypt their hard drives - but then this comes with such an
  annoying time bomb, leaving people with an unsolvable problem, not
  able to access their data.

  The installer should of course create lvm names with some random part,
  so it is no problem to mount your old disk and copy your data.

  Thinking about it one more question comes up: why on earth is LVM not
  able to mount volumes with the same name? It is using that user given
  string as an ID? Really? What are people with hundreds of archive
  disks doing? They have a notebook with all the volume names, so they
  now which name not to pick for a new hard disk? come on...

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