11.04 Desktop CD installation fails with a FreeBSD partition

[ahavatar]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

The Desktop CD installation had been working fine on my machine past couple of years. But from 11.04, it fails to install Grub2 successfully.

When it tries to mount a FreeBSD partition, it fails (of course it can't mount a FreeBSD partition) and quits installation without finishing the installation, leaving the PC unbootable.

If I inspect the root partition of the failed installation, /boot directory has not an initrd image nor grub subdirectory nor grub.cfg.

I solved this problem by downloading the altenative CD, and it installs 11.04 without any problem. When it can't mount a FreeBSD partition, it just ignores it and proceeds to finish the installation.

I do not know what has been changed in the 11.04 Desktop CD from 10.10 or previous releases, but please fix this regression bug.

Thanks.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: ubiquity (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Apr 30 23:08:23 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110426)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

Triaged: Detailed description of what needs to repeat it and cause
High: Has a severe impact on a small portion of Ubuntu users (estimated)

ahavatar: Have you tried this on any newer versions of the installer? (I've not got a FreeBSD around to try on but I could set up).

[ahavatar (kbn00)]

No, I've been using the alternative installation CD since this bug happened to me.

[Dave Gilbert (ubuntu-treblig)]

Hi Ahavatar,
  Thanks - well I've just tried to do this and, well I've got a VM that doesn't boot; however
the /boot does have a grub.cfg and a kernel and initrd.

I suspect my problems here may have been the interaction of different partition table formats etc but not quite hit
the same case as you.

Can you give me some suggestions as a sane partition setup that you would expect to work?

I went with all the defaults on a FreeBSD 9 install (I've not done BSD for a long long time) and left space and a partition
on the disk; that had a GPT partition table.

Dave

[ahavatar (kbn00)]

FreeBSD has not yet support GPT for multi OS booting. My disk uses MBR partition scheme. Use MBR partition and allocate just one primary partition to FreeBSD.

By the way, after successfully installing Ubuntu and adding some required packages, "update-grub" automatically detects FreeBSD and works great if the disk uses MBR partition scheme.

[dino99 (9d9)]

natty have reached EOL now

[dino99 (9d9)]

This version has expired