Re: Partman

[Anton Zinoviev <anton@lml.bas.bg>]

I apologize for making string changes in partman today.  I didn't guess
that Tuesday means probably 0:00 GMT and not 23:59 GMT (and I was
offline since the IRC-meeting so I missed the announcement in
debian-boot).

On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 11:45:42PM -0300, Margarita Manterola wrote:
> 
> The problem with partman main screen is that everything is an option,
> and it becomes really confusing to the user.  A simple change, like
> putting the hard-drive information at the top and joining all the other
> options at the bottom may be a bit more clarifying.

This is where we started from. ;-) Every beta changed something and
there were always complains.  If I can I will post a review of the
tested variants, so hopefully we can make the final choice a bit more
grounded.

> Then, I think that a GREAT difference could be made by transforming the "Help"
> and "Finish" options into buttons at the bottom of the screen.

This is something that cdebconf doesn't allow (for now).

> The formatting screen is the one that I've found out to be more
> confusing.  Specially when people that's new to partman try to find
> where the swap is.
> 
> We've discussed this with some friends, and we came to the agreement
> that if in "Usage method" it said "Create a File System" or maybe just
> "File System" instead of "Format the partition" it would make the user
> realize that that's the option he wants to change to use swap.

Today I uploaded a new version of partman that does things in this way:

=== for swap space:
Use as:     swap area
.....

=== for partition with file system:
Use as:     ext3 journalling file system
Format:     yes
.....

=== for LVM, RAID, PALO, NewWorld, etc:
Use as: physical volume of LVM
.....


> I think we need some sort of "tips"
> to allow people to realize where the things are, but this is much more
> difficult, I know.

It is possible to add a help screen as you suggested in #252010.
I'd appreciate if someone else writes the help text.

> It's kind of dumb to show the "Bootable flag" for certain partition
> types (like swap), I think it would be better to not show it when it
> makes no difference, so as not to confuse the user unnecesarily.

Although it would be quiet exotic I think it is possible to install a
boot loader in the first sector of a swap partition.  So the bootable
flag makes sence even for swap. :-)

What about adding an item "Preferences" in the main partitioning screen.
Initially many of the items in the menus are hidden (Bootable flag,
LVM, RAID).  The experienced users will have to go to "Preferences" in
order to show all items.

> The one I already submitted is a "Server" recipe, that exchanges the
> /var and /home sizes from the "Multi-User" recipe (or something like
> that), I think that having this one would make a lot of people's lives
> easier.

One requirement (in my opinion) for the recipes is that their name will
say enough to the people who install Debian.  What is the purpose of a
server with big /var?  (http, squid, mail?, news, what else?) (#251415)

By the way why do you think that the "multi-user" recipe is not properly
named? (#251414)

Anton Zinoviev