Suggested changes in Kubuntu installer (/boot changes and disk naming)

Flavors & Remixes Kubuntu
1

Hello there!

I would like to suggest two changes in the Kubuntu installer, that in my opinion would be fitting.

  1. Make /boot a separate partition, even if the disk is not encrypted. This is my worry in regards to btrfs installations, which Kubuntu offers right now and the recent announcement, that Ubuntu will be dropping support for btrfs in grub starting in 26.10. As it stands currently, if you select either ext4 or btrfs in the installer and chose not to encrypt the disk, the /boot is placed directly on the main partition, resulting in it being formatted as btrfs. If Ubuntu drops support for btrfs in grub, this could lead to unbootable system after an update. The change is pretty simple - in /etc/calamares/modules/partition.conf there are two properties that need to be changed:
    1. In main config drawNestedPartitions: false (without this the installer crashes)
    2. In section kubuntu_boot the property onlyPresentWithEncryption: false
  2. The naming scheme for the main partition - currently it’s kubuntu_[current release], so for 25.10 it’s kubuntu_2510. This is fine, but if a person updates their system to 26.04, the root partition will still be named after 25.10. I think it would be more consistent with the kubuntu_boot and the purpose of this partition, to change the naming to a generic kubuntu_root. This would help avoid confusion and represent the purpose of the partition a bit better.

These are just my propositions, but I think this would help first to make it more approachable for more casual users - as every guide and Linux explanation post ever talks about a separate /boot partition, I have met people, who were confused about why there’s no /boot partition and if their installation is broken. Also it would help explain to them better what this main partition is - it is root partition, that lives alongside boot partition.

Thank you.

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