Comment 6 for bug 222421
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| Paul Taylor (paul-taylor-london) wrote | #6 |
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bbfa235
(Get the code!)
to Steve Langasek:
How do you know that (occurrence of) this bug is "rare"? It renders the computer unusable, especially if it occurs during use of the installation CD. If this happens to someone who is "just trying out" Linux for the first time, they'll (re)install Windows Vista and never come back to Linux. If it happens to a more experienced Unix user, they'll switch to another Linux distro and never come back to Ubuntu. In neither case is the user likely to go to the trouble of submitting a big report.
I can understand your intellectual frustration in not understanding what "triggers" the failure to create initrd.img, but the priority is surely to fail safely, or find a roundabout way of succeeding, as I eventually did myself, by using initrd.img.bak.
I would suggest that the program that rewrites /boot/grub/menu.lst should refuse to do so unless it can find an initrd.img (or an initrd.img.bak). It could then also generate whatever debugging information you need, and ask the user to submit it here.
I would also suggest that the installation CD should not trash the existing system, but leave it in a state that allows the user to revert to it, ideally via the GRUB menu.