Chris Siebenmann5d ago
It has been '0' days since I found an incompatibility in Ubuntu 26.04 Rust coreutils: 'stty tabs'. Also, the uutils stty manpage is absolutely ass in 26.04.
Show threadChris Siebenmann

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...)

Mar 24 at 3:34pmWeb
Show threadChris Siebenmann5d ago

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.

Show threadChris Siebenmann5d ago
It appears that 26.04 cannot boot from mirrored RAID and probably any RAID because the initramfs built by at least the installer simply does not attempt to assemble RAID arrays.
Show threadChris Siebenmann5d ago

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).

Show threadChris Siebenmann5d ago

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.

Show threadChris Siebenmann5d ago
Because I'm a masochist I wrestled with Launchpad and may have filed a bug in the correct area: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/subiquity/+bug/2146165
Bug #2146165 “Dracut kernel command line parameters not added fo...” : Bugs : subiquity package : Ubuntu

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...

Launchpad
Show threadsadmin4d ago
@cks thank you!
Show threadFazal Majid5d ago
@cks I thought you were planning on migrating away from Ubuntu in any case?
Show threadChris Siebenmann5d ago
@fazalmajid We had sort of hoped not now and that 26.04 would be perfectly okay. We'd have to completely redo much of our installer setup to get Debian going and that's a much bigger project than spinning another variation on Ubuntu LTS. (Plus inevitable operational differences, plus things we can carry forward from Ubuntu but not Debian since we don't have saved versions of them, plus ...)
Show threadFazal Majid5d ago
@cks I understand the pain. I myself run Alpine on my servers and CachyOS on my laptops/desktops, keeping Ubuntu only on the machines with Nvidia GPUs I need CUDA on.
Show threadJames Just James5d ago
@cks I gave up on Ubuntu a long time ago. Join us on Fedora or Arch.
Show threadChris Siebenmann5d ago

@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.)