As Ubuntu maven Colin Watson announced June 8 in the developer mailing list, the new Ubuntu bootloader is called GRUB 2. The fundamentally new GRUB variant will be in effect for all the newest Ubuntu version installations. The decision came out of the developer meeting for Karmic Koala.

The project wants to leave be already existing installations with GRUB. It's been their policy not to reinstall the bootloader automatically even when upgrading to a new version of GRUB Legacy. Otherwise an inexperienced user might want to reinstall using the new bootloader after a failed installation, a "risky operation," according to Watson. Ubuntu wants to avoid any bad surprises with the GRUB 2 introduction.

There are a few good reasons to upgrade the old, but stable, legacy GRUB. One is to fix design mistakes that couldn't be resolved for backward compatibility, such as the illogical partition addressing. Another is that GRUB 2 provides a few features missing in GRUB Legacy. Among the features are a graphical interface, scripting support, internationalization, elimination of Stage 1.5, cross-platform installation and the dynamic loading of additional modules at runtime.

Particularly adventuresome users can replace their "long-in-tooth" GRUB with the new bootloader from the Ubuntu wiki, which goes into quite a bit more detail. Watson suggests reporting any bugs, particularly those involving regressions from GRUB Legacy, to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2 .