ubiquity crashed with InstallStepError in configure_ma()

[mk]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Live CD

lDescription: Ubuntu 8.10
Release: 8.10

Repeatedly crashes at the same point during Ubuntu installation.
initrd.img-2.6.27-7-generic file never created in the boot directory.

I am trying to install Ubuntu on a machine that has an old installation of RH8 for which Ubuntu does not have migration assistance. It nevertheless mount the old RH8 system partition as /mnt/migrationassistant. Could this be somehow connected with the crash?
It does not matter whether I tried to install Ubuntu on the same disk (in its own partition) or on a different disk - the results are the same.

ProblemType: Crash
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.5
Package: ubiquity 1.10.10
ProcAttrCurrent: unconfined
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity gtk_ui
ProcEnviron: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/proc/7614/environ'
PythonArgs: ['/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity', 'gtk_ui']
SourcePackage: ubiquity
Title: ubiquity crashed with InstallStepError in configure_ma()
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-7-generic i686
UserGroups:

[mk (miro-mkolar)]

It really crashed because of the migration assistant, see the end of the attached UbiquityDebug.gz:
......
  File "/usr/share/ubiquity/install.py", line 1275, in configure_ma
    raise InstallStepError("MigrationAssistantApply failed with code %d" % ret)
InstallStepError: MigrationAssistantApply failed with code 2

By googling (it took me some time) I find that to disable it, one has to start the Ubuntu installation from the prompt:
ubiquity --no-migration-assistant

In this way, I was able to successfully install Ubuntu.

This is not obvious to somebody who tries Ubuntu thee first time.
It would be much easier if the install script asked whether migration assistant should be used or not, or even better if the script finds that migration assitant is of no use, as was my case, turn it off automatically.