Ubuntu 20.04's Server Installer Sees Last Minute Work To Better Handle Linux RAID Installs

Ubuntu 20.04 LTS is due for release on Thursday and it's seen a last minute upgrade to its "Subiquity" server installer.

Ubuntu's Subiquity server installer has been around for almost three years but Ubuntu 20.04 is the first Long Term Support release where it's the default and in fact the classic Debian Installer image is no more for this release. As such, Ubuntu 20.04 marks the point at which Subiquity will be the server installer used much more in the enterprise.

Subiquity at first was quite rough around the edges but has improved with time and 20.04 now marks the first release where the DI installer was required to focus on Subiquity.

The last minute update this week is Subiquity 20.04.2. Besides having last minute fixes (including a number of auto-install fixes) and pulling in a new version of Curtin, there is a new feature in that there is support for installing and maintaining multiple boot volumes for UEFI/BIOS booting systems. This support for multiple boot volumes is in regards to this 14 month old bug report over supporting multiple EFI system partitions (ESPs) at installation. This work in particular is to help deal with installing Ubuntu to Linux software RAID arrays and properly booting.

Michael Hudson-Doyle wrote yesterday in closing that bug report over handling of multiple ESPs, "It's very very late but this is landing for focal."

Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS is set to debut on Thursday with the Linux 5.4 kernel by default, PHP 7.4 and Python 3.8 along with many other package updates, and a plethora of other improvements especially if going from Ubuntu 18.04 to this newest long-term support release.