grub-install : error failed to register the EFI boot entry

[keshavbhatt]

The problem:

While installing Ubuntu 21.04 on a machine today, I faced grub install failed errors lot of time.
Later I was able to solve the issue but the error ubiquity was throwing were every irrelevant and helped me no where in resolving the issue. I was not able to report the detailed bug report using Apport when i faced this but I will line out complete reproduction steps below.

How to reproduce:

- Select manual partitioning in install wizard.
- Try to create a EFI partition (When i didn't created a EFI partition the installer reported there is not enough space left in EFI partition grub-install failed). Also a user who is using legacy boot don't know why the installer even need a EFI partition, so they won't create it manually and will end up with same grub-install failed error.
- The create partition prompt that came up by default chose partition type Logical for me, even if I chose EFI in filesystem type.(Knowing that the installer will fail if the EFI partition type is set to logical).
- Proceed to install Ubuntu.
- A grub-install failed prompt appears while completing the install. (Here when i looked in the install log, the last error reported was : grub-install : error failed to register the EFI boot entry:Operation not permitted)

Here how i solved this:

I changed the partition type of EFI volume to Primary from Logical.

What's expected:

If the EFI partition is needed even in the legacy boot mode by the installer, Ubiquity should let the users know about this before letting them start the installation process. Or by creating one for them by default.

When user choose a partition filesystem type to EFI, switch the partition type from Logical to Primary by default(cause that's what we need to install grub in it). This only took my 2-3 hours figuring out where i did go wrong (I don't how a new user will deal with this).