[Bug 1893964] Re: Installation of Ubuntu Groovy with manual partitioning without an EFI System Partition fails on 'grub-install /dev/sda' even on non-UEFI systems

[Liam Proven]

I *have* read the previous comments, all of them.

This is *not* a "feature". This worked correctly in all Ubuntu versions
up until 19.10.

The correct behaviour is very simple:
* detect if system booted using UEFI or BIOS
* if UEFI, require ESP
* if _not_ UEFI, do not check for ESP, do not create one, do not warn, install GRUB to MBR or root FS and continue.

Again: no other distro makes this mistake.

I review Linux distros professionally and have done since the 1990s.

For what it is worth I have now criticised this behaviour twice in
published articles to millions of readers and I will continue to do so
until it is fixed.

The argument about potentially moving a distro to from a BIOS machine to
a UEFI one is bogus; the OS won't boot without GRUB in the MBR which is
incorrect for UEFI and won't work anyway on a UEFI machine.

It doesn't work the other way either: I have tried moving a UEFI install
to a BIOS machine and that will not boot, and reinstalling GRUB did not
work.

This is a mistake introduced in Ubuntu 19.10 by someone who did not
consider the impact on BIOS-based systems. Fedora works and does not
complain, as do Debian, Alpine and Arch.

This is a BUG and it is unique to Ubuntu post Eoan.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1893964

Title:
  Installation of Ubuntu Groovy with manual partitioning without an EFI
  System Partition fails on 'grub-install /dev/sda' even on non-UEFI
  systems

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in ubiquity source package in Hirsute:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  Hello,

  trying to install current daily-live images of Groovy in VirtualBox
  fails for me when I'm using manual partitioning without an EFI System
  Partition (ESP).

  Steps to reproduce:

  1. Partition layout I have used in VirtualBox:
   * Partition table: MBR
   * A single primary ext4 partition (/dev/sda1) using up the entire virtual harddisk with 1 MB free space before start of the partition
  2. Boot current Groovy daily-live image, click on "Install Ubuntu"
  3. Choose "Something else" (manual partitioning)
  4. Select /dev/sda1 as target for '/', check "format partition".
  5. Ignore warning about missing EFI system partition.

  Result:

  The installation proceeds until GRUB is about to be installed.
  Then an error dialog appears: "Executing 'grub-install /dev/sda' failed. This is a fatal error." (screenshot attached).
  If I click 'Ok', after a moment Ubiquity nevertheless shows the usual dialog saying "Installation is complete. Please restart." The only option the dialog offered was to click on "Restart now".
  After that, booting the failed installation succeeds, but it is obvious that Ubiquity couldn't complete its job: Packages like ubiquity itself, which usually get purged from the fresh system at the end of a successful installation, are still installed. There is also a pop-up in gnome-shell showing an error regarding package management (screenshot attached, not sure if this is related to the failed install).

  Modifying the setup by creating an ESP manually like described in #7
  makes the installation complete successfully without error.

  The setups I have tested (my machine and VirtualBox) don't support
  UEFI or don't have UEFI support enabled respectively (and thus don't
  actually require an ESP to boot).

  To send this report, I was running 'sudo ubuntu-bug ubiquity' on the
  "failed", but nevertheless booting fresh installation.

  Kind regards, Jan

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.10
  Package: ubiquity 20.10.9
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-42.46-generic 5.4.44
  Uname: Linux 5.4.0-42-generic x86_64
  NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
  ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu45
  Architecture: amd64
  CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
  Date: Wed Sep  2 16:55:14 2020
  InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.4.0-42-generic root=UUID=6ba06971-16c7-4df6-afcc-3bc101cba9a5 ro quiet splash
  SourcePackage: ubiquity
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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