Fatal flaw connected to GRUB found at very late notice, never fear!

By Benjamin Humphrey, Published April 29, 2010
This bug report which was reported yesterday suggests that Lucid was about to ship with an issue that caused the secondary operating system to be missing from GRUB when installing in a dual boot setup; if migration assistant found anything to import.

“When installing in a dual boot environment, the other operating system will not appear at first in the GRUB menu. Installing the available updates and rebooting will fix this issue.”

Potentially catastrophic to Windows and Mac users who want to install Ubuntu alongside their current OS, thankfully the bug has been fixed in updates and a decision was made to re-spin the ISO images for the Ubuntu desktop edition only to include the updates in time for release. Other variants will get the update in the next day or two (or should already have it).

The comments on the bug report give an excellent insight into the stressful situation key developers and Canonical employees face around release time, and we should all +1 them for picking up on this only hours before release and fixing it swiftly.

Any help on testing the fix would be much appreciated, but please DO NOT bombard the bug with pointless comments at such a crucial time.

“We’ve decided to respin the 32bit and 64bit CDs of Ubuntu Desktop *ONLY*, as we feel this gives us the widest spread fix possible and allows us to still release today (April 29th). Unfortunately, this means other affected variants, such as Xubuntu, will not have this fix, and we deeply apologize for this.”

We’re intending to have this bug fixed in the official ISO release at this point.”

– Robbie Williamson – foundations team

More info here.
Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

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  • Anonymous

    Was wondering why it’s been the 29th for 15 hours and it still hadn’t been released…

    • Anonymous

      They’re not behind schedule, it usually isn’t released till around 4pm UTC.

      • http://ubunturoot.com JasonCook599

        I thought that it was released at 00:00 UTC. I was planing on doing it yesterday (it would have been 8pm) and was wondering why it wasn’t released!

    • http://www.h3manth.com hemanth.hm

      date -u in your terminal will tell the UTC time :)

  • Suzan

    Only 6.38 AM in LA! Day just began in the US!!
    I always wonder why people think THEIR day is THE day all over the world.

    But back to topic: the developers do and did great work. Hopefully they had enough coffee! ;-))))

    • Anonymous

      Most people in the timeless world of the internet use GMT/UTC, and since I’m in England atm, my time is THE time….

      (Actually I was off an hour because of DST)

    • Anonymous

      Because everything is measured against GMT. You are either +hours GMT or -hours GMT :-)

    • anonymous

      How dare you, why do Americans think that every other country must know everything about them or that it’s THEIR day that other countries must bow down to and say times which mean nothing (x Eastern and y etc.) to them. So we have to know everything about you? How many times have I read a blog that publicizes the American way of doing things, when the rest of the world DOESN’T do it that way and when a WORLD WIDE STANDARD can easily be established?

      Got to love insularity. By the way, your healthcare system is the best in the world. (That was sarcasm, just so you know, I know SOME (not a generalization) Americans have trouble detecting it. )

  • http://www.h3manth.com hemanth.hm

    How many dual boot ubuntu with other OS?

    • Anonymous

      The great majority I’d imagine.

      On the machine I’m using now I have Fedora 12, Ubuntu 9.10, Ubuntu 10.04 RC, Win 7 and Win XP

      • http://www.h3manth.com hemanth.hm

        Everything is nice expect win*

    • Anonymous

      So many people ….

      • http://www.h3manth.com hemanth.hm

        Even i do :) but just wanted few feed backs, specifically why win* so called OS

    • http://twitter.com/Ekennes Erik Kennes

      i do 10.04, and windows 7 although in the time it takes to boot 7 i can be online and checking email in ubuntu

    • http://cldx.blogspot.com/ Joern Konopka

      A lot actually, i guess its some weird “I dont want to lose my Soul” Scenario thats spawned from the sheer assumption that Windows IS the Computer. I remember back in the Days when i installed my first Ubuntu, i was well aware of the Fact that Windows was mereley a piece of Software lying on my Harddrive, but erasing it for the sake of something i might not even get along with? Unthinkable. And thats coming from someone who had some prior insight into the handling of OS’s, now imagine somebody who never saw anything on a Computer besides Win ME and XP.

      • http://www.h3manth.com hemanth.hm

        A little twist in the story, what if there are persons who started with GNU/Linux and never saw windows? That’s what i’m trying to do, making young kids to start with GNU/Linux, rather than getting used to win* and getting addicted to it!

      • Anonymous

        For some it may be that but for others, including myself, is about having as much choices as possible. I bought a new computer that came with win7; why would I uninstall it if it’s a fairly competent OS? I do use Ubuntu about 95% of the time but I like having the choice of using win7 every now and then. I mainly use win7 to stream media from the HTPC my dad has in his room. He uses Media Center to handle his media and it’s a great tool for a HTPC when using the Media Browser program. I like the implementation of media libraries in windows explorer (the file browser) in win7 and that’s why I use it for media streaming when in my house.

        If I could have OSX in another computer then even better. You really can’t go wrong with having the choice of using any of the top OSs. The three of them are very good right now.

    • daas88

      I use ubuntu with gnome obviously, archlinux with kde, and windows7 just for gaming.

      • http://www.h3manth.com hemanth.hm

        Searching for one who says i use only ubuntu nothing else :)

  • Paradiesstaub

    Would be nice if you could post a torrent download link into the release post :)

  • Paul

    This happened to me with the RC but I just thought it was a fluke. I just ran update-grub and I was good to go. Simple fix but could be very frustrating for new comers

    • boskysquelch

      me too… that and as per the last umpteen releases…no ability to install via USB on a Mac except by running the update script within it…pfffft

      *I don’t use CDs for anything else but Ub…and then everytime I buy a pack..I burn off a couple of ISOs and then the rest disappear=get nicked by scrounging “mates”……cds r sooooooooo retro. :rerleyes:

  • Bart

    When will update from 9.10 to 10.04 be available, it’s already 4/29/10?

  • Thatguy

    So kubuntu won’t be released today? Too bad but I’ll survive.

  • Anonymous

    Good thing it got fixed. Benjamin! check out this infographic from The Oatmeal detailing proper use of a semicolon; I have it bookmarked! http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon

  • brypie

    http://releases.ubuntu.com/10.04/

    Downloading the torrent now…

  • Anonymous

    I was going to download the torrent, but after reading this post I am not sure if I want to do it that way.

  • http://orionrising.wordpress.com Penguin

    I wonder if the above mentioned bug has been fixed for Kubuntu yet? (April 30th at 5:30 pm) So if I download a fresh copy from the mirrors now, will it still have the bug? Thanks!

  • Gnubie

    This better be fixed in the upgrade iso, coz Im a few minutes away from finishing the upgrade. If I reboot and lose my XP, Win 7 and OSX partitions, it’s an understatement that I’ll be cheesed-off….

    • http://ubunturoot.com JasonCook599

      The bug doesn’t delete your partitions. It will just not recognize that you have multiple Operating Systems. If you do download the ISO will a bug, it should be fixed after an upgrade.

  • http://jado92mx.wordpress.com jado92mx

    Good notice! but if would be a great note if they had fixed that issue on all *buntus. Well, that’s my point; they can let alone their little each time the big one needs attention. Momma Canonical, take care of your minor sons!

    JaD!