Binary package hint: apport
When a user uninstalls the 'grub-pc' package in favor of 'grub', the next kernel upgrade will prompt the user whether they wish to create menu.lst, defaulting to 'no' and erroring out the package install if they don't choose 'yes'. This is all by design, but the package install error a) is something we want to avoid, b) results in bug reports being filed against the grub package for what is in fact a user error. Users should not uninstall grub-pc in favor of grub without manually configuring it and verifying that it is installed correctly to the right device, as this would be just as bad as failing to install the kernel package where kernel security support is concerned.
So we should fix the apport ubuntu general hook to give the user immediate feedback about their configuration error, instead of leading them to file a bug report. I think this should be fixed in the apport package instead of in a separate grub hook, because the ubuntu hook already contains the logic to redirect this to grub from the kernel package and this makes it easier to eliminate false-positives; but if others think this should be source_grub.py, I'm happy to use that instead.
SRU justification: This should be included as an SRU to lucid and maverick because we get at least 5 reports a week from users of these releases who have misconfigured their systems in such a manner, requiring manual effort to close their bugs.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub/+bugs?field.searchtext=post-installation+1&field.status%3Alist=INVALID&field.status%3Alist=NEW shows upwards of 100 reports of this nature filed against grub.
This can be addressed for the natty release by forward-copying the maverick-proposed SRU to natty.
TEST CASE - on a system that was originally installed with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS or Ubuntu 10.10 media:
1) on lucid, uninstall the lucid-release version of 'linux-image-2.6.xx' if currently installed.
2) break the system by running 'sudo apt-get install grub' and allowing grub-pc to be removed.
3) use apt-get install to install the lucid or maverick release version of the kernel.
4) confirm that apport steers you toward filing a bug in launchpad.
5) install apport from -proposed.
6) run 'sudo rm /var/crash/linux-image-*.crash'.
7) run 'apt-get -f install' to reattempt the installation of the kernel package
8) confirm that apport tells you to install grub-pc, instead of steering you to file a bug report.
9) run the indicated command to reinstall grub-pc and restore your correct bootloader configuration.
10) if desired, remove the release version of the kernel package.
Accepted apport into maverick-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https:/