[Bug 2008948] [NEW] Ubiquity does not raise an informative error when device for bootloader has MBR (should be GPT)

[Benjamin Bach]

Public bug reported:

Thanks for a good installation experience :) I have one unfortunate
experience that took me many many hours to work through.

Ubiquity should raise an error when a device chosen for the bootloader
has an unsupported MBR table and not GPT. AFAICT, Ubuntu's grub
installation only supports EFI so that requires GPT.

Error suggestion: "Invalid partition table detected. Cannot complete
installation. Please install bootloader on another device or choose New
Partition Table (warning: All data will be lost)."

User experience is this: I chose "Something else" to do manual
partitioning. I tried many different options for partitioning and
restarted the installation many times. They all lead to a grub
installation error at the final step after copying all files. As a user,
I'd persistently try to make the existing partitions work to avoid
copying gigabytes of data in and out of the drive.

It's possible to claim that manual partitioning should be 100% the
user's responsibility, but I would still expect an error to be raised if
something in the setup is incompatible.

The error from grub itself is also not informative.

By rewriting the partition table, I got a valid GPT layout and the
installation succeeded.

** Affects: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2008948

Title:
  Ubiquity does not raise an informative error when device for
  bootloader has MBR (should be GPT)

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Thanks for a good installation experience :) I have one unfortunate
  experience that took me many many hours to work through.

  Ubiquity should raise an error when a device chosen for the bootloader
  has an unsupported MBR table and not GPT. AFAICT, Ubuntu's grub
  installation only supports EFI so that requires GPT.

  Error suggestion: "Invalid partition table detected. Cannot complete
  installation. Please install bootloader on another device or choose
  New Partition Table (warning: All data will be lost)."

  User experience is this: I chose "Something else" to do manual
  partitioning. I tried many different options for partitioning and
  restarted the installation many times. They all lead to a grub
  installation error at the final step after copying all files. As a
  user, I'd persistently try to make the existing partitions work to
  avoid copying gigabytes of data in and out of the drive.

  It's possible to claim that manual partitioning should be 100% the
  user's responsibility, but I would still expect an error to be raised
  if something in the setup is incompatible.

  The error from grub itself is also not informative.

  By rewriting the partition table, I got a valid GPT layout and the
  installation succeeded.

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