create BIOS Boot Partition on GPT

[Colin Watson]

Binary package hint: partman-auto

GRUB2 support for GPT without the use of blocklists requires a BIOS Boot Partition. See http://grub.enbug.org/BIOS_Boot_Partition for details. If we don't do this for Karmic, then we'll be stuck with a very suboptimal bootloader arrangement, so I'm marking this as release-critical.

[David Favor (davidfavor)]

All well and good.

Please update this bug with a set of commands to create a BIOS Boot Partition so this bug can be circumvented until the fix is done.

Thanks.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I'd rather focus on fixing it (and other problems) than on preparing a tested sequence of commands, sorry.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I've posted patches for this to the Debian bug report.

See the URL in the bug description for advice on doing this by hand.

[David Favor (davidfavor)]

Currently this bug is set to be fixed in Alpha 6.

Click https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/419911 for an example of one set of commands to structure a GPT disk for Grub 2.

Maybe this will assist this bug being fixed in Alpha 5 instead of Alpha 6.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

I understand that you are waiting for a fix here, but please stop
harassing me about this bug. As noted in a previous comment, I have
already sent patches to the appropriate mailing list for review, and in
order to ensure maximum quality I intend to wait for that review rather
than short-cutting the review process. Unless you are my manager,
harassing me about delivery timelines will not have the effect you
desire.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Uploaded:

partman-partitioning (71) unstable; urgency=low

  * Upgrade to debhelper v7.
  * Convert BIOS GRUB boot area support to a method, thereby making it
    impossible to accidentally put a filesystem on such a partition as well,
    and making it simpler to preseed. See #491376. Thanks to Otavio Salvador
    for reviewing this.
  * Make partman-partitioning/bad_new_size,
    partman-partitioning/big_new_size, and
    partman-partitioning/small_new_size templates less terse (thanks, Evan
    Dandrea; LP: #34974).

  [ Updated translations ]
  * Asturian (ast.po) by Marcos Antonio Alvarez Costales
  * Czech (cs.po) by Miroslav Kure
  * German (de.po) by Holger Wansing
  * Greek, Modern (1453-) (el.po) by Emmanuel Galatoulas
  * French (fr.po) by Christian Perrier
  * Korean (ko.po) by Changwoo Ryu
  * Portuguese (pt.po) by Miguel Figueiredo
  * Russian (ru.po) by Yuri Kozlov
  * Swedish (sv.po) by Daniel Nylander
  * Thai (th.po) by Theppitak Karoonboonyanan
  * Simplified Chinese (zh_CN.po) by Deng Xiyue

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:21:02 +0100

partman-auto (89) unstable; urgency=low

  * Upgrade to debhelper v7.
  * Add a biosgrub partition to default recipes, used only if the disk label
    is GPT (closes: #491376). Requires partman-partitioning 71. Thanks to
    Otavio Salvador for reviewing this.

  [ Updated translations ]
  * Korean (ko.po) by Changwoo Ryu
  * Russian (ru.po) by Yuri Kozlov

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:09:20 +0100

This will become effective for the desktop CD as of the next ubiquity upload, whenever that may be (but certainly before Alpha 6, as that's routine).