This is my face that Ubuntu 26.04's packaging of util-linux has omitted /usr/bin/mesg. What? Why?
(well technically this is the slightly pre-beta 26.04 packages...)
As incredible as it seems, it appears that the Ubuntu 26.04 daily builds, very shortly before the beta release, cannot boot from a mirrored RAID root disk setup (either UEFI or MBR booting).
This is my face, again.
Okay, I am incorrect about the Ubuntu 26.04 software RAID problem, it is stupider than you expect.
26.04 switched to dracut-built initramfs'es. Dracut requires a kernel command line parameter to tell it what RAID arrays to assemble, rd.md.uuid= for each array. The Ubuntu server installer does not add this new kernel command line argument. Result: catastrophe.
Of course I have approximately no idea how to file an installer bug against Resolute (server).
Current status: doing a terrible Ubuntu 26.04 installer hack that fixes their terrible failure to cope with the extremely unusual server configuration of (checks notes) software mirrored root drives.
Which we use on all of our physical servers for the obvious reason.
Hopefully this will all be fixed in actual 26.04, maybe even in the beta version, and for now I'm going to forget about it all because life is too short to wrestle with Ubuntu's bug reporting procedures.
In the current 26.04/resolute daily ISO images, if you configure a system with its root on software RAID (for example, with mirrored disks), the result will fail to boot and time out. The direct cause of the failure is that the initramfs does not assemble to the software RAID array of the root filesystem. My analysis of the cause: In the current server 26.04 environment, subiquity and the Ubuntu installer process install a system that uses a Dracut-based initramfs. In its stock configuratio...
@purpleidea Fedora and Arch turn over too fast for work machines. Upgrading more often than every year (for Fedora, realistically) is too fast a pace for both us and the people using our systems.
(I have run Fedora for a very long time and I find upgrades irksome enough that (coughs awkwardly) my machines are still F42, even though my runway is running out fast.)
@rpluim At the time we started (~20 years ago) it was our best option for long support + reasonably current + big package set. Today, Debian is pretty much as good on all three and we stay out of inertia and mild existing Ubuntu-specific knowledge.
Edit: also a predictable release schedule, a LTS every two years in April is easy to plan for.
@rpluim Yeah, Canonical is already part way down the greasy slide towards various things. So far it hasn't been fatal for our use but I'm not optimistic about the trend.
(We've seen this show before with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS for that matter, which Red Hat gutted when they decided they wanted more money from people.)
@cks @rpluim The predictable LTS release and excellent package selection is what kept my work on Ubuntu. But I think we are switching away to anything else.
Changes to the 24.04 installer mid 2025 messed up some server installs. Problems with snaps. These problems you have with 26.04. Not great for a server OS.
@dmaonR @rpluim To be polite¹ to Ubuntu/Canonical, 26.04 is currently explicitly a daily development build before even a beta release. But we're so close to beta (officially the 26th) that I don't expect this issue to be fixed before then, and it's an extremely obvious issue that is trivial to automatically test in a VM.
(The entire installer can be driven through a configuration file.)
¹ (I refuse to be 'fair' to Canonical.)
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