Ubuntu
grub-installer package

GRUB doesn't install (Dapper Beta-1)

Bug #41044 reported by ozonehole
68
This bug affects 15 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
grub-installer (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

GRUB DOESN'T INSTALL (Dapper Beta-1)

I installed Dapper Beta-1 from the "Install" CD (as opposed to the "Live" CD).

During installation, I got this error message:

"No boot loader has been installed, either because you chose not to or because your specific architecture doesn't support a boot loader yet. You will need to boot manually with the /vmlinuz kernel on partition /dev/hda5 and root=/dev/hda5 passed as a kernel argument."

The thing is, I absolutely swear that I did not chose to not install the boot loader. I was never asked that question during the installation.I had no such problem with Breezy, which installed LILO (but not GRUB).

Just to be sure I didn't absent-mindedly screw something up, I repeated the whole installation from scratch with the same result. I should note that when I installed Breezy Badger earlier, I didn't encounter this problem.

I was only able to get Dapper to boot by installing Kanotix on another partition, since Kanotix installs Grub (I then edited /boot/grub/menu.lst to add Dapper).

Perhaps this is unrelated, but after successfully booting into Dapper, I did an "apt-get install grub". Then I tried running "grub-install /dev/hda" and got this error message:

  root@x31:~> grub-install /dev/hda
  /dev/hda does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.

So I still cannot get Dapper to boot its own copy of Grub, I'm still reliant on the Kanotix partition to be able to boot at all.

My hardware:
IBM ThinkPad X31, Centrino processor. The DVD drive is external, connected through the USB port).

Revision history for this message
Colin Watson (cjwatson) wrote :

Please attach /var/log/installer/syslog to this bug report; it should (I hope) have enough debug information to investigate the problem.

Changed in grub:
status: Unconfirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
ozonehole (taibei) wrote : syslog for installer

As requested, /var/log/installer/syslog is attached to this message.

best regards,
Robert (ozonehole)

Revision history for this message
Colin Watson (cjwatson) wrote :

Well, you won't be able to easily get the installer to install grub, because your /boot is on an XFS filesystem; we've had a very large number of reliability problems getting grub installed on XFS (see other bug reports), so it's disabled.

The interesting question is why the installer didn't automatically fall back to lilo, as it's supposed to. Would you mind booting the install CD, running through it up to the start of the partitioner (you don't have to go further, so it won't write to your disk), pressing Alt-F2 to get to the debug shell, running 'dmidecode -s system-manufacturer; echo $?', and sending the output to this bug? This is to confirm a suspicion I have. Thanks in advance.

Revision history for this message
ozonehole (taibei) wrote :

OK, I booted the install CD, got to the partition screen and ran 'dmidecode -s system-manufacturer; echo $?' as requested. The output I got was:

IBM
0

Thanks for letting me know about Grub's problem with XFS - that explains why I wound up with LILO when I installed Hoary. Maybe a warning needs to appear somewhere that Grub cannot be safely installed on an XFS /boot partition.

cheers,
Robert (ozonehole)

Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering has a later version of the installer ending up using lilo instead of grub? Thanks in advance.

Changed in grub-installer:
assignee: nobody → brian-murray
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

This worked for me in Feisty so the bug can probably be closed.

Changed in grub-installer:
assignee: brian-murray → nobody
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek) wrote :

Thanks for helping improve Ubuntu. I am marking this bug closed based on the last comments above.

Changed in grub-installer:
status: Confirmed → Fix Released
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