Xubuntu 24.04 LTS installer ignores bootloader device

[Peter Lee]

Xubuntu 24.04 LTS Installer ignores specified legacy boot loader installation device

NOTE reported against ubiquity because ubuntu-desktop-bootstrap not yet known to launchpad

xubuntu 24.04 LTS
ubuntu-desktop-bootstrap version 0+git.eef0e0fd6 revision 205
Legacy BIOS mode installation

System is Lenovo H520S bought 2013. HDD GPT sda, SSD GPT sdb. Legacy BIOS mode. Installing to sda13 /, sda14 /home, sda11 /boot, and bootloader device sde, a USB thumbdrive, MBR, one empty ext2 partition.

Installer ignored specified device sde and attempts to install boot loader on sda, which fails.

Note that first run of installer reported that updated installer was available, update was accepted and installer restarted.

Screen photos:
 snap list showing installer version
 manual partitioning display showing sde specification
 installation summary showing bootloader going to sda not sde
 installer failure display
 installer log indicating attempt to install legacy boot loader
   to sda failing because device is GPT not MBR

After installer failure, I was able to manually install the boot loader to sde, and successfully booted so far as the Xubuntu login screen, but since installer failed before user logins had been installed (and presumably no cleanup of unneeded packages, etc, I could get no further.

This is a show-stopper for me.

Note that with the ubiquity installer, one had the option of executing it from the command line with the -b option to tell it to skip grub setup completely. Is there any way to do this with ubuntu-desktop-bootstrap? (See also Launchpad bug report 696926 where a related issue was raised after a change to ubiquity removed the choice of skipping grub installation from the gui.)

[Chris Peterson (cpete)]

Hi and thanks for your report,

Could you please also attach the contents of /var/log/installer? This will help with debugging the issue.

[Peter Lee (billiardmarker)]

I'm currently on holiday, will do this when I return in about a week. PL

On 29.06.24 01:45, Chris Peterson wrote:
> Hi and thanks for your report,
>
> Could you please also attach the contents of /var/log/installer? This
> will help with debugging the issue.
>
> ** Changed in: subiquity
> Status: New => Incomplete
>

[Peter Lee (billiardmarker)]

As requested. PL

On 29.06.24 01:45, Chris Peterson wrote:
> Hi and thanks for your report,
>
> Could you please also attach the contents of /var/log/installer? This
> will help with debugging the issue.
>
> ** Changed in: subiquity
> Status: New => Incomplete
>