Provide better system feedback when OS fails to boot

[[e-mail]]

I installed Kubuntu without issue on a VM and my laptop, after weeks of testing and enjoying it I decided to install it on my desktop's second hard disk.

I then selected that disk as my first boot option in my motherboard settings, and restarted my computer.

Kubuntu shows this message:

[ 0.269691] tpm_crb MSFT0101:00: [Firmware Bug]: ACPI region does not cover t he entire command/response buffer. [mem 0xda56d000-0xda56dfff flags 0x200] vs da 56d000 4000
[ 0.269704] tpm_crb MSFT0101:00: can't request region for resource [mem 0xda5 6d000-0xda56dfff]
_

Then asks me to decrypt my drive, flashing the Kubuntu logo, then returns to the error message and nothing further happens.

No helpful error message is shown. No information is shown on the screen as to what is happening in the boot process. Nothing. Trying to search online for answers was tedious and exhausting. Tried disabling various BIOS security settings on advice of forum people. No help.

I eventually searched for information on how booting works and found that if you push shift and escape after your BIOS logo flashes and before disk decryption you can get to the Linux boot menu. Once in that menu I chose to continue normal boot. But now everything worked. And once I installed and updated all drivers and rebooted my OS worked fine.

So to recap: TPM, Fast Boot, disk encryption, disk drive order, boot location, BIOS, had nothing to do with the problem. I think if you choose in installation not to 'download updates during installation to save time' and your computer isn't exactly what Ubuntu expects, then it dies when trying to boot. I'm betting it was some graphics driver, but who knows.

So I recommend some of:
1) Scrolling text display on the screen showing exactly what is happening during the boot process so users can see at what point booting fails.
2) Always providing the option to select the boot options GUI thingy when booting, so users don't have to spend hours finding out about shift escape.
3) Checking during installation if the user's computer will fail to boot without additional drivers, and not allowing installation to proceed without downloading those drivers.
4) If booting stalls after 30 seconds, display a link to a webpage explaining how to troubleshoot the problem.

This was a horribly Linux off-putting experience.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Libera.chat.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1990555/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Thank you for your suggestion. However, the changes you are requesting aren't really a bug and require more discussion, which sometimes should be done on an appropriate mailing list or forum.

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/mailinglists or https://discourse.ubuntu.com are good places to start in determining where to raise such ideas.

Bug reports should in general be reported against specific packages rather than the Ubuntu project in general as any such reports raised against 'Ubuntu' seldom attract the attention from those that can make or consider such changes.

However, as both Ubuntu and Kubuntu currently use 'ubiquity' as their installer I'm moving this report to the ubiquity package for now.