Comment 11 for bug 47135

I've nominated this bug for Karmic 9.10.

Reasons why I think this issue should be addressed:
   1. Special boot managers or important data stored in the first track of the hard disk can be overwritten by the automatic installation of GRUB. For example, an Extended MBR (used by BootIt NG) is completely overwritten, resulting in loss of all partitioning information. Even with Windows installation, only the first sector (MBR itself) is overwritten, which is a well known behaviour and much easier to recover from.
   2. Currently, the text mode installer provides a choice of GRUB install location only if other operating systems are detected, or certain partitioning options are chosen. The problem is OS detection is not always accurate. I have test cases that demonstrate this. Why not play it safe and always confirm?
   3. On some systems, BIOS issues may make the detection of which device is the first hard disk unreliable in some cases, e.g. booting from USB CD-ROM or installing to a USB hard disk. If the install location of GRUB is always confirmed, these issues can be worked around much more easily.
   4. For several releases, the graphical installer (both old and new design) has had the ability to choose a GRUB installation location, regardless of OS detection status. The alternate text mode installer should also have this choice, since it provides a superset of the installer functionality, with options such as RAID, LVM, and encryption.
   5. The consistent confirmation of GRUB install location was originally removed in order to simplify the Ubuntu installation process at a time when the graphical installer did not exist. Since the alternate text mode installer is now only used for special cases, this should no longer be a concern.
   6. This bug has been open with Medium importance for 3.5 years now, and based on Colin's comment was originally planned to be addressed (or at least considered) in the Edgy 6.10 cycle.

Recommendation:
   1. Always ask the Yes/No question of whether GRUB should be installed to the Master Boot Record of the first hard disk, regardless of OS detection results or partitioning options.
   2. If the user chooses 'No', present the standard dialog for specifying GRUB install location.
This is consistent with the original debian-installer operation, and would address all concerns outlined above.