[Bug 1769404] Re: grub is installed to /dev/sda by default and fails

[AtesComp]

So, the undocumented "GRUB_DEVICE" may be the answer.  I could only find
it in a Gentoo post:

GRUB_DEVICE (detected) Device node for the volume containing the root
filesystem. Set this to override the grub2-mkconfig command's root
device auto-detection. For example, GRUB_DEVICE=/dev/ram0 will force
root=/dev/ram0 to be used in the kernel command line.

While it clearly exists:
> grep DEVICE -A40 /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig
it is not documented in the standard:
> https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub/grub.html

I will test.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1769404

Title:
  grub is installed to /dev/sda by default and fails

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  I choose to install Ubuntu 18.04 on /dev/sdb. I don't want to do
  partitioning manually so I don't open advanced partitioning tool.

  I expect grub to be installed on same disk. Because my /dev/sdb is SSD
  and it is first in boot list in BIOS, and my /dev/sda is empty HDD and
  I'm not going to install anything on it and going to use it as
  storage.

  But it seems grub-installer tries to install grub on /dev/sda by default. There are 2 cases:
   
  1) If /dev/sda has no partition grub-installer fails. After the failure it suggests to choose another disk for grub. I choose /dev/sdb and it still fails.

  2) If /dev/sda has any partition Ubuntu installation finishes
  successfully. But it doesn't boot after installation. I see only black
  screen with cursor blinking.

  The workaround I found is to open advanced partitioning tool, change
  grub installation disk to /dev/sdb, go back, and again choose Ubuntu
  installation on /dev/sdb.

  All logs attached here are from VirtualBox where I have reproduced the
  issue with grub-installer failure. I've reproduced second case as well
  but I'm not sure how to collect logs in this case.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
  Package: ubiquity 18.04.14
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-20.21-generic 4.15.17
  Uname: Linux 4.15.0-20-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperVersion: 1.394
  CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
  Date: Sun May  6 00:21:57 2018
  InstallCmdLine: file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash --- maybe-ubiquity
  LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180426)
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   LC_NUMERIC=C.UTF-8
  SourcePackage: grub-installer
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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