[ubuntu-uk] Special bugs, and Live CDs. Help with this Bug please?

[alan c]

I use a lot of Live CDs, the Desktop editions. Mostly I distribute 
them in various ways. The quantities are sometimes quite large. Also I 
am active on various forums, acting in an outreach way, to give a 
profile to GNU/Linux, particularly Ubuntu.

I am not a developer but I am an active advocate and helper and 
supporter of Ubuntu newcomers. I am retired, so this is close to a 
full time occupation. :-)

Live CDs are frozen in time, a snapshot of the amazing forward speed 
of GNU/Linux development. While bugs in an installed system are likely 
to be washed away by the flux of updates, any bug in a Live CD is 
going to stay there, in the plastic disc, awaiting use,  becoming 
irrelevant only when history decides.

I got burned by a nasty bug in the live CD of 10.10 which has the 
effect of wiping your whole hard drive if you should be so unlucky to 
choose a particular install option relating to choosing a *partition* 
(not the whole drive!).

Seen from a Developers point of view this 'frozen' bug is hardly 
relevant. I mentioned it in the Mint forums for their RC version, 
because unlike Ubuntu, Mint still have the opportunity to fix it 
before final release. The information received little attention, 
including one response that said such as 'the bug only affects two 
people, it is not so important, anyway people should have backups'. A 
bit harsh, I thought. I was using a machine specifically for tests. It 
had a couple of hard drives, and multibooted several versions of 
Ubuntu, and Windows. In a test machine data is not an issue, I just 
reinstall of course. Reinstalling Windows was a real pain. I did have 
an image, but would you like to guess where it was? in a *data* 
partition well away from the Windows partition, but on that drive.....

With macabre humour I could see that this might be one way to get rid 
of Windows......,
  (  :-)  ) although I suspect it might muddy the Ubuntu waters and 
reputation a bit.

This bug will 100 per cent affect anybody who choses the option I did.

Your drive will be wiped. Data partitions, Windows if you use it, and 
other distributions co-existing. Gone. The blessing is that few people 
will choose that particular option. That is a good thing because I 
fear for the wider reputation of Ubuntu if it affected many people. It 
has in its title, Windows partitions, but it does not discriminate, it 
will wipe all partitions.

How can we ensure this bug is fixed and not carried forward to the 
next release?
If you think you can help, please see Bug #659106
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/659106
tia
-- 
alan cocks
Ubuntu user #10391
Linux user #360648