usb-creator has hard-coded references to Ubuntu

Bug #321937 reported by Twisted Lincoln, Inc.
22
This bug affects 5 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
usb-creator
Fix Released
Unknown
Guadalinex
Confirmed
Medium
Juanje Ojeda
usb-creator (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: usb-creator

usb-creator mentions "Ubuntu" directly in the interface, as does many other apps. However unlike most other apps that come with Ubuntu, it does not display this by using the current distribution listed in the /etc/lsb-release file. As a result, derivative distributions must modify the source code in order to change the reference to Ubuntu to their distro's name.

Making the code reference lsb-release instead of a specific value will make it portable to other distros without modification.

Revision history for this message
Twisted Lincoln, Inc. (twistedlincoln) wrote :

Any progress on this? It would be great to not have to fork usb-creator anymore for Nexradix.

Revision history for this message
Evan (ev) wrote :

With respect to hard-coded "Ubuntu" strings, I think usb-creator should source the release name from the CD image for the installation complete dialog, and the introduction label should be rewritten to not use a operating system title at all.

Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Evan Dandrea (evand)
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: New → Confirmed
summary: - usb-creator has hard-coded references to Ubuntu, rather than using the
- distro in /etc/lsb-release
+ usb-creator has hard-coded references to Ubuntu
Revision history for this message
Twisted Lincoln, Inc. (twistedlincoln) wrote :

That would probably be easier, certainly. In fact, that's exactly what I did when I modified usb-creator for inclusion in Nexradix. I changed the intro label up top to read:

"NOTE: To boot or install from a USB disk, it needs to be set up as a startup disk. Make sure your system's BIOS is set to boot from USB."

I considered using the more proper sounding "USB drive" term, but since the rest of the interface refers to them as "disks" I kept it the same for consistency.

Juanje Ojeda (juanje)
Changed in guadalinex:
assignee: nobody → Juanje Ojeda (juanje)
importance: Undecided → High
milestone: none → final
status: New → Confirmed
importance: High → Medium
Revision history for this message
Twisted Lincoln, Inc. (twistedlincoln) wrote :

Any chance this will be fixed for Karmic?

Revision history for this message
Leo (leorolla) wrote :

I was going to file the same bug but I serached before and found this one.

It would also be nice to allow the use of any ISO image with internal structure compatible to that of Ubuntu, rather than /etc/lsb-release or hard-coded constraints. The user will do it at her own risk, but it may be useful for many applications.

Revision history for this message
Twisted Lincoln, Inc. (twistedlincoln) wrote :

We forked the Jaunty version for Nexradix, and it works just fine, despite that the name in /etc/lsb-release isn't Ubuntu. The only thing we actually changed was the menu labels in the interface so that they were distro-neutral.

So unless something has changed in the Karmic version, there aren't any hard-coded constraints for it to *work,* it just doesn't look right to have instructions mention Ubuntu in an app that isn't only distributed in Ubuntu.

From what I can tell, the only thing your ISO image needs to work with this tool is the .info folder on the root of the CD, and the same structure of filesystem.squashfs (which should probably also be generated with the same version of casper as the version of Ubuntu that the corresponding usb-creator was released with).

Changed in usb-creator (Nexradix):
importance: Undecided → Medium
assignee: nobody → Twisted Lincoln, Inc. (twistedlincoln)
status: New → Confirmed
Evan (ev)
Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
assignee: Evan Dandrea (ev) → nobody
Revision history for this message
Twisted Lincoln, Inc. (twistedlincoln) wrote :

This is still happening as of Trusty. We're still forced to fork the package...

no longer affects: usb-creator (Nexradix)
Revision history for this message
Twisted Lincoln, Inc. (twistedlincoln) wrote :

Not to be overly repetitive, but this is still an issue 8 years later...

While the solution discussed above (pulling the release name from /etc/lsb-release) would certainly be nice, there's no reason this really needs a fix that complicated. Every instance of the word "Ubuntu" can be avoided by re-wording of a few sentences.

If a patch is needed to get this fixed upstream we'd be more than willing to provide one.

Revision history for this message
Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur) wrote :

I'd be happy to sponsor a patch that does the lsb-release lookup.

Revision history for this message
David Hedlund (g-public) wrote :

See also: Remove, and replace, OS-promoting text - https://bugs.launchpad.net/usb-creator/+bug/2036756

Changed in usb-creator:
status: Unknown → Fix Released
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