Comment 14 for bug 495423

I can confirm this bug (looks more like plain stupidity than a bug) and it affected me badly.

Never ever update of anything should touch MBR or 'autoidiotically' change vital system areas
unless explicitly told to do so by admin.

> Would it be easier to detect other bootloaders?

No. No one can know of all or even most of bootloaders in use, the less how to detect them reliably.
Ie there can be govt mandated security assesment under its own bootmanager that a few people
will ever see.

Fix:

There is /boot/grub or /etc/default/grub to use for. flag whether messing with MBR is allowed.
If user/admin agrees to during install, put either grub_can_mess_with_mbr.yes file into /boot/grub directory
or fill in GRUB_CAN_MESS_WITH_MBR=yes in suitable script in /etc/grub.d and transfer it to grub.cfg
for inspection. also GRUB_INSTALL_TO_DEV= or GRUB_INSTALL_TO_UUID= need to be introduced
and RESPECTED.

P.S. It is CRITICAL bug. In fact due to this stupidity of grub2 update I am told now to purge ubuntu from
ALL places in my organization, after a few year battle for being allowed to install ubuntu on less important
production machines.

System: 10.04 LTS / dual boot with nationa