MediaIntegrityCheck

Summary

As of Ubuntu 5.10, the installation and live media are capable of performing an integrity check, but they do not do so by default, and the means to activate it is not obvious. While it is not worth the additional time to perform the check by default, a more obvious path to the media checking will be provided.

Rationale

Bad CDs happen, and we need a way to detect them. The way to do so should be obvious to the user.

Use cases and scope

  • Matt is installing Ubuntu, but receives strange error messages about read errors. His copy of Ubuntu is from a friend, so he realizes the problem might be that the CD is defective, but he wants to make sure.

Design

Making the check mandatory would be a very small effort, as this could be done by making cdrom-checker a dependant of cdrom-retriever. However, it's felt that spending a few minutes extra per installation probably is not worth the wait.

Instead, the boot menu will contain an option "Check this disc for errors". Any errors are reported, then the computer is restarted.

Implementation

  • A newer syslinux gives us a usable menu. This needs to be incorporated into the installer.

  • Add the menu item, which starts cdrom-checker instead of main-menu as the menu. cdrom-checker should notify the user about success/failure and then reboot.

  • cdrom-checker might need changes. It appears not to need any, but it would need to be tested to make sure.

CategorySpec

MediaIntegrityCheck (last edited 2008-08-06 16:26:18 by localhost)