use UUID=0 for "boot partition", e.g. in fstab

[André Pirard]

Any version, any release and probably any distribution.

Update:

Please please please read the title of this report and see that this report is not (only) related to Gparted but to UUID=0 being an alias of the UUID of the partition in which that reference appears.
The Gparted side of the story turns out to be bug #737387.

Completely restated, finally.

--- EOE ---

When the UUID of a partition is changed, e.g. during backup, UUID=... references to it become invalid. Remembering that, finding and editing these references is not easy to do for the novice, let alone geek. But in most cases those references (mostly in fstab) are to the UUID of the partition they're in.
Hence, if coding UUID=0 meant "the booting partition", "the partition we're in", "this partition", "myself" ... by convention, there would rarely be any need to change any UUID references in a boot partition. Copying such a partition with UUID rename would keep the partition bootable instead of dead. Moreover, any references made by a boot partition to other partitions are usually meant to remain unchanged when the boot partition is "renamed".
Note: UUID=1 could also mean "any swap partition" or "the sole swap partition" on this disk.

In consequence, with UUID=0/1 and if Gparted changing the UUID by default (which it does not (1)) when copying a boot partition, making a safety backup of one's system disk would be a seamless process instead of a pile of warnings and surprises.
(1) By default, Gparted creates partitions with the same UUID and, among other system's anomalies, traps itself into believing that one partition is locked when another one should be locked instead.

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

Thank you for "affecting" this report.
Please notice that using UUID=0 as an alias of a real UUID is not a GParted matter but one of some disk management component.
Gparted renaming an UUID is only part of the whole story and you may want to open an additional bug for it with the same text, one just flips the coin.

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

Please notice that using UUID=0 as an alias of a real UUID is not a GParted matter but one of some disk management component.

PLEASE READ THE TITLE !!!!

and see that this report is not (only) related to Gparted but (mostly) to UUID=0 being an alias.
The Gparted side of the story turns out to be bug #737387.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

You can't have a magic "this partition" uuid that refers to where /etc/fstab is, because /etc/fstab is found in the first place by the partition's UUID. It's a chicken and egg problem. UUIDs simply must be unique.

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

Yes, using the real well known UUID of the booting partition to replace UUID=0 is quite possible during the boot process (egg laying time if you like). I am not, of course, speaking of determining which hen^H^H^H UUID to boot, which is a cock^H^H^H^H pre-boot instead of boot matter.
Please note that I'm always working towards making Ubuntu usable for the non-geek.
It proved necessary to restate the description and I did.
Thank you.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

In order to substitute "where you boot from" for UUID=0, you first must know where to boot from. The way the boot loader decides where to boot from is by searching for the correct UUID. If the UUID has changed, or duplicated, then it can't figure out where to boot from, so it can't figure out what should be substituted for UUID=0.