Comment 3 for bug 236975

A slightly neater way, rather than modifying root_locale is to add a new root_opts file:

1) Create "/usr/share/initramfs-tools/conf.d/root_opts" containing "export ROOTFLAGS" <----[ this is the root cause of step 2 not working alone]
2) Append "rootflags=gid=115,fmask=113,dmask=002" to the end of the "#kopt=" line in /boot/grub/menu.lst
3) Run "sudo update-initramfs -k all -u" and "sudo update-grub"