Bug report out of context: Harcy handling of /dev/sd? devices is unacceptable

[Alan E. Davis]

I have been happy to use Ubuntu for a while, and felt it has improved my
work habits, because I didn't have to spend much time maintaining my
system.  I used Ubuntu in the past, off and on, and decided finally to
install Ubuntu on all my systems.  My main machine, however, I am now moving
away from Ubuntu back to Gentoo.

I still recommend Ubuntu to others, and I will still use it on a laptop and
two other machines with a single HDD each.  However, the behavior of Ubuntu
2008.04 pertaining to mixed PATA and SATA drives is insuperable.  I will
keep my eye open, however, I will probably be forced to install some other
distribution, much to my chagrin, in other systems.  This is the main
reason, the critical reason to be uncomfortable with Ubuntu on any computer
of mine: it will be difficult to regain my trust.

I have posted several times to the Ubuntu mailing list or forums.  I
understand the overwhelming volume as an issue, and perhaps some of my posts
were not well written, but I cannot remember very many times---perhaps only
20%---when I've received a response.  The forum isn't much better---and the
forum has become burdensome due to the perceived need to filter out
undesireable users and robots with a signin screen.  My attempts to post
bugs have been frustrated by the bug reporting system that Ubuntu uses.  I
have learned to solve my own problems.  I have regretted not being
knowledgeable enough to help most others.

I have posted this problem before, more than once, and never received a
response.  I am galled that Hardy was even released with such a bug.  Others
have posted similar problems, but with little help.  Here, then, is the bug
report I started to make last night.  It probably seems more like a rant,
but it is absolutely true, and my rant is minor, when I recall losing
somewhere between 40 and 60 GB of personal archives.

Here it is:

   Ubuntu 2008.04.

    I experienced a plethora of problems involving /etc/fstab, grub.
    Device names were inconsistent.  I have one PATA drive and one
    SATA drive.  Assignment of previous /dev/hda to /dev/sda coopted
    the earlier assignment on several Linux distros, by assigning
    normal /dev/sda and /dev/sdb, etc.  I have several HDDs that I
    swap in and out between two machines.

    Due to the inability of grub to deal properly with the
    installation of GRUB into the MBR, I had to use a Gentoo install
    disk, and install from that, before being able to get Ubuntu to
    boot using grub.  It worked out, once this had been done, that
    Ubuntu's grub then wrote a /boot/grub/menu.lst with a device
    number that did not jibe with the actual device ordering.
    THerefore I had had to edit the automatically installed Ubuntu
    menu.lst to reflect a different drive assignment.  After this,
    Ubuntu booted ok.


    As a consequence of the naming debacle, I inadvertently wrote over
    a 40+ GB partition, mistaking it for a different one.  I am
    reporting this as a bug.  I use Ubuntu on a laptop and another
    machine with a single HDD, but on my main machine I will not do so
    any longer.  This bug furthermore has been reported several
    places, but the Ubuntu but reporting and the difficulties of using
    Ubuntu forums (require the copying of digits from an image just to
    read!  Ridiculous and a waste of time.)  seem to have conspired
    against the bug being widely recognized.  Hardy Heron should not
    have been released with this bug.  The fact that it was indicates
    that the powers that be placed marketing issues ahead of a
    critical bug.  Why was it not recognized?

    My motherboard is an ASUS M2N-E with a Phoenix Bios.  HDDs are
    Western Digital, IBM, and Maxtor.


    I did not make this up.  I will be using other options for now.
    However, I have recommended Ubuntu to many people, and I plan to
    recommend it in a professional development workshop for my school
    system, although, at this point, with some trepidation.  Even
    though I have, in most of my work, moved over to Gentoo, I wish to
    make this bug known, in hopes it will be taken a little more
    seriously.  The new fstab using UUID has been a major headache.
    Perhaps it does have it's usefulness.  However, I can see now that
    the easy modification and understanding of the system by the user
    has taken second place to other concerns.  I have never seen any
    admission by any Ubuntu people that this is a problem, every bug
    report I have seen is met with a note in some superior tone of
    voice about how good it is.  For me, it was a disaster.  Is Ubuntu
    violating the spirit of the concept of Openness by releasing this
    distro?

Please do not try to answer about the SATA/PATA issue or the Grub issue,
unless you can report that the problem has been resolved.  I have no use for
further explanations of the preference for UUID in /etc/fstab.  Ubuntu Hardy
Heron seems to have taken a perilous fork in the road, and despite any
conceivable explanation, it leaves the user in less control of his system.

-- 
Alan Davis
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20080806/65d1cecd/attachment.html>