[Bug 1990555] Re: Provide better system feedback when OS fails to boot

[Paul White]

Thank you for your suggestion. However, the changes you are requesting
aren't really a bug and require more discussion, which sometimes should
be done on an appropriate mailing list or forum.

http://www.ubuntu.com/support/community/mailinglists or
https://discourse.ubuntu.com are good places to start in determining
where to raise such ideas.

Bug reports should in general be reported against specific packages
rather than the Ubuntu project in general as any such reports raised
against 'Ubuntu' seldom attract the attention from those that can make
or consider such changes.

However, as both Ubuntu and Kubuntu currently use 'ubiquity' as their
installer I'm moving this report to the ubiquity package for now.

** Package changed: ubuntu => ubiquity (Ubuntu)

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1990555

Title:
  Provide better system feedback when OS fails to boot

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I installed Kubuntu without issue on a VM and my laptop, after weeks
  of testing and enjoying it I decided to install it on my desktop's
  second hard disk.

  I then selected that disk as my first boot option in my motherboard
  settings, and restarted my computer.

  Kubuntu shows this message:

  [ 0.269691] tpm_crb MSFT0101:00: [Firmware Bug]: ACPI region does not cover t he entire command/response buffer. [mem 0xda56d000-0xda56dfff flags 0x200] vs da 56d000 4000
  [ 0.269704] tpm_crb MSFT0101:00: can't request region for resource [mem 0xda5 6d000-0xda56dfff]
  _

  Then asks me to decrypt my drive, flashing the Kubuntu logo, then
  returns to the error message and nothing further happens.

  No helpful error message is shown. No information is shown on the
  screen as to what is happening in the boot process. Nothing. Trying to
  search online for answers was tedious and exhausting. Tried disabling
  various BIOS security settings on advice of forum people. No help.

  I eventually searched for information on how booting works and found
  that if you push shift and escape after your BIOS logo flashes and
  before disk decryption you can get to the Linux boot menu. Once in
  that menu I chose to continue normal boot. But now everything worked.
  And once I installed and updated all drivers and rebooted my OS worked
  fine.

  So to recap: TPM, Fast Boot, disk encryption, disk drive order, boot
  location, BIOS, had nothing to do with the problem. I think if you
  choose in installation not to 'download updates during installation to
  save time' and your computer isn't exactly what Ubuntu expects, then
  it dies when trying to boot. I'm betting it was some graphics driver,
  but who knows.

  So I recommend some of:
  1) Scrolling text display on the screen showing exactly what is happening during the boot process so users can see at what point booting fails.
  2) Always providing the option to select the boot options GUI thingy when booting, so users don't have to spend hours finding out about shift escape.
  3) Checking during installation if the user's computer will fail to boot without additional drivers, and not allowing installation to proceed without downloading those drivers.
  4) If booting stalls after 30 seconds, display a link to a webpage explaining how to troubleshoot the problem.

  This was a horribly Linux off-putting experience.

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