[Bug 1991471] Re: grub-install fails as installer incorrectly assumes EFI

[Daniel Richard G.]

A couple further remarks:

The installer was run in a live system booted from a read-only USB stick
that has an EFI system partition. This partition was mounted at
/boot/efi/ by the installer (despite never being requested, and the
system not using UEFI). This particular behavior has been reported in
other bugs, e.g. bug #1983384, bug #1970995.

If /boot/efi is unmounted, and the directory removed during installation
(prior to the grub-install step), then the installation completes
successfully.

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Title:
  grub-install fails as installer incorrectly assumes EFI

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I am using the installer in the released image of Xubuntu 22.04.1
  (jammy). The ubiquity version is 22.04.17.

  The system supports UEFI, but this is disabled. /sys/firmware/efivars/
  is absent, and no EFI partition is present. syslog even shows this
  line:

      Oct  2 04:20:23 xubuntu 05efi: debug: Not on UEFI platform

  I use the "Something else" option for partitioning, and set up swap,
  /, and /home partitions.

  The install then fails with

      ==== Unable to install GRUB in /dev/sda ====

      Executing 'grub-install /dev/sda' failed.

      This is a fatal error.

  Here is the relevant excerpt from syslog:

      Oct  2 04:20:24 xubuntu grub-installer: info: Identified partition label for /dev/sda3: msdos
      Oct  2 04:20:24 xubuntu grub-installer: info: Installing grub on '/dev/sda'
      Oct  2 04:20:24 xubuntu grub-installer: info: grub-install does not support --no-floppy
      Oct  2 04:20:24 xubuntu grub-installer: info: Running chroot /target grub-install  --force --target x86_64-efi "/dev/sda"
      Oct  2 04:20:24 xubuntu grub-installer: Installing for x86_64-efi platform.
      Oct  2 04:20:36 xubuntu grub-installer: grub-install: error: cannot open `/boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu/grubx64.efi': No such file or directory.
      Oct  2 04:20:36 xubuntu grub-installer: error: Running 'grub-install  --force --target x86_64-efi "/dev/sda"' failed.

  The installer appears to be attempting to install grub-efi-amd64
  instead of grub-pc, despite having correctly identified the system as
  non-EFI earlier.

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