Problems with 12.10, 13.04, 13.10 server installs

[Patrick Goetz]

Hi -

I'm bringing this issue to the attention of this list in the hopes of 
finding out where it is most appropriately addressed.

I've recently done a number of server installs using mostly the 13.10 
64-bit pre-release ISO, but also testing the problem I'm about to 
mention using 12.10 and 13.04.

My current server build strategy, which I think is becoming fairly 
common, is to use 2 SSDs in a software RAID 1 for OS/swap and the either 
hardware RAID or another software RAID using traditional large disks for 
data.  The problem seems to be with server hardware which includes a 
BIOS fakeraid (in particular when fakeraid is turned off -- fakeraid on 
doesn't seem to work, either, with exactly the same symptoms).  The 
symptoms are the OS installs, grub seems to successfully install on 
/dev/md0 or /dev/md127 (whichever md device exists in /dev at the time 
of the install), but then the system won't boot.  In the latest case, I 
can't even get to a grub rescue prompt - the screen just hangs with a 
blinking dash.  When I do get a grub rescue prompt (previous attempts on 
other hardware), it doesn't do anything; i.e the grub commands don't work.

The reason I suspect the fakeraid HBA is that recently I installed 2 
superMicro servers, one from 2011 with no fakeraid, a more recent one 
which does include fakeraid.  13.10 installed with no problems on the 
older machine, but won't boot on the newer one as described above.  In 
another case I had almost the same problem with a Dell server which 
similarly came with an HBA with fakeraid.  The Dell server predates 
UEFI, so I'm ruling this out as a source of the problem.

The problem is subsequently resolved using the boot-repair package from 
ppa:yannubuntu; i.e. I boot 13.04 live, install and run boot-repair, and 
subsequently all is well.

My question is, why isn't the installer getting the grub install right 
in the first place?

I tried taking this issue to the #ubuntu-server IRC, but that seems to 
be a wasteland of people who are at best extremely inexperienced asking 
questions about how to use bash and stuff like that.

Since the problem also occurs with the 12.10 and 13.04 server ISO's, I'm 
not sure that logging a bug on launchpad is the right way to go -- the 
problem is not 13.10 specific.  My next step is to make a note of all 
the grub configuration information after the initial installation and 
then compare it to the modifications made by boot-repair (which is a 
superb piece of work, btw).

Any thoughts on a better forum to take this issue to?