[Bug 1668148] Re: Warning message when installing in EFI mode to a BIOS disk is horribly confusing

[Łukasz Zemczak]

After experimenting with possible scenarios with the current partman-efi
(2 systems on kvm - first one installed in BIOS mode, second in UEFI), I
currently propose two courses of action:

1) Removing the warning prompt completely and always continuing in UEFI
mode. During my testing on bionic it seemed that there was no risk in
continuing in UEFI mode, even when BIOS mode OSes were present they were
still bootable and visible in grub. Maybe I missed some test case? What
use-case could tempt the user to not continue the install in UEFI since
that's the mode we're in right now? Maybe just a warning, without any
choices, would be enough?

2) Reformat the warning message and default to continuing in UEFI mode.
I'm not an expert here, but to me currently it feels like the more risky
solution is to not to force the EFI install. If the system is running in
UEFI mode and the user selects 'cancel', in the end he/she will not have
a bootable system anymore without switching to BIOS or creating the ESP
manually. To me that doesn't sound like a very good default. Or am I
misunderstanding something from the testing I did?

I'd generally prefer 1), but I'll defer to people with more experience
in UEFI and partman-efi.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1668148

Title:
  Warning message when installing in EFI mode to a BIOS disk is horribly
  confusing

Status in partman-efi package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in partman-efi source package in Artful:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  When installing in EFI mode to a disk that is partitioned without an
  EFI system partition, you do get a warning message that this may cause
  a problem and suggests that you go back and do a bios mode install
  instead.  The way that it is worded, and the fact that the button to
  switch to a BIOS mode install is labeled "cancel", is very confusing
  and has lead to hundreds, if not thousands of users clicking the OK
  button instead, and proceeding with an install that is doomed to fail.
  This message really needs to be clarified.

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