Comment 16 for bug 670003

OP has additional data to report.

After my efforts to install 10.10 Mythbuntu from the LiveCd failed at "Configuring hardware" two weeks ago, I put Meerkat on the back burner. Today, I spent the afternoon performing some more experiments.

- the bug I reported is still present and 100% reproducible. The installer hangs at "Configuring hardware" while generating /boot/initrd.img.2.6.35.22-generic WHEN INSTALLING TO A SATA-CONNECTED 1TB SEAGATE DRIVE.

- I obtained an old 160 GB IDE drive and connected it to my system. The 10.10 installer completes successfully WHEN INSTALLING TO THE IDE DRIVE. But see caveat below.

- note that the Mythbuntu 10.04 LTS installer worked successfully to another SATA drive. I have been booting from and using that 10.04 system for the last week or so.

The 10.10 installation roadblock would seem to be hardware dependent: if the target is an IDE drive, it works fine. If the target is the SATA drive, it fails. My hardware comprises:
- Asus K8N with Sempron 2600+
- onboard IDE controller
- onboard SATA controller
- Promise SATA 300 TX SATA controller (PCI card)
- brand-new Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 1TB drive (ST31000333AS)
- Asus V9520 Magic/T video card w/GeForce FX5200

Thinking that the onboard Asus controller might have some obscure firmware glitches, I tried the installation using both the internal SATA controller and the add-on PCI controller. In both cases, the 10.10 installer hangs when generating the initrd.img file. Something in 10.10 has regressed compared to 10.04.

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Caveat - I can confirm the bug reported by Pontus Goffe regarding choice of video driver. If I install 10.10 to the IDE drive and choose the Nvidia video driver, the installer completes OK. But when the system boots, it hangs at the purple splash screen. However, if I install 10.10 and stick with the open source driver (the default), the new installation then boots successfully. Once the Ubuntu desktop appeared, I was able to activate the Nvidia driver. After another reboot, the 10.10 system came up, using the Nvidia driver. This is similar behavior to that which Pontus reported above.

It seems unwise to offer the choice of video driver during the installation process given that the resulting system will not boot reliably if the Nvidia driver is chosen.