Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) hit by major bug on release day

Each new release of Ubuntu usually garners a lot of excitement among the geeks but this latest release was a little more than Canonical had bargained for. A critical bug was found after they spun the final ISO. The bug affected the GRUB2 bootloader configuration and prevents other OS in your multiboot configuration from loading. It does not actually destroy the other OS and it can be fixed but it’s a pain the ass like so many other Linux issues. This is exactly the reason why I abandoned my Linux OS experiment last year. I was spending way too much time dealing with minor issues like wifi drivers, trackpad drivers, losing sound for no reason, monitor calibration problems, etc. All those things just work, even in a Windows environment. People like to tout the security of Linux and the minimal exposure to viruses and trojans but I spent more time tweaking my Ubuntu OS than I had ever spent on any other OS combined.

The bug does not happen with single boot Ubuntu and it does not happen with every multi-boot configuration but it can happen and if you’re one of the ones being hit with the bug, it can be very irritating and render your other OS inoperable until you fix the boot. Canonical will respin some of the ISO to fix the bug.

From IncidentReports/2010-04-29-Late-respin-for-bug-570765

We had a late discovery of GRUB bootloader bug affecting dual-boot users of Ubuntu. When installing in a dual-boot environment, the other operating system will not appear at first in the GRUB menu. Installing the available updates and rebooting will fix this issue. However, it was determined the day of the release that this is not an optimal solution for new users or those not connected to the Internet.

List of new features in 10.04

Early reports of problems

Grub2 documentation