On Friday 06 October 2006 01:30, Joey Hess wrote: > David Härdeman wrote: > > Strange, it sounds familiar...oh yes...it's what I've been suggesting > > all along [1]. So I think its safe to say that we fully agree. > > I'm not going to say anything more on this issue, except that I still > think that Kamion and my argument has merit, I have reread the IRC discussion you mailed and also taken a look at Colin's proposal for Ubuntu [1]. I do agree that your arguments have merit, but I am not convinced that asking for the disk first is the better solution. In the current context there are arguments for and against both implementations. And, as said before, I really dislike the current hybrid solution. Personally, I would be much more anxious if I had to choose a disk first: I'd wonder what the hell was going to happen with it. With my current proposal it is completely obvious what is going to happen to a disk the user selects and also that there _is_ going to be a selection (which, if the system only has one disk, will merely be a confirmation). Choosing the disk first may be if better option if the total concept from Colin could be implemented (especially the bit about "partman-auto-resize"), but that is not on the cards for Etch. We should make sure that there are confirmation dialogs for all methods before anything is written to disk (preferably with an explicit warning that all existing data will be erased) and we should probably also display the selected disk in the recipe selection dialogs. I will work on that tomorrow. After reading the discussion again, I realized that I had accidentally replaced "guided" by "automatic", so below a new proposed first p-a screen. <example> The installation system allows you to either use guided partitioning (using different standard recipes), or set up partitions manually. If you choose guided partitioning for an entire disk, you will next be asked which disk should be used. Partitioning method: Guided - use the largest continuous free space Guided - erase entire disk Guided - erase entire disk and set up LVM Guided - erase entire disk and set up encrypted LVM Manual </example> There's a lot of text that could be added on this screen, but too little space. Maybe we should consider adding a help option here? - What happens if you choose manual partitioning (overview of existing partition layout + full control over any changes) - Extra info about the "largest continuous free space" option - That the installer will always ask for confirmation before writing to disk Another option could be to add a screen "View detected disks and partitions" on the first screen. This would lead to partman's main screen, but with only a "return" option. Both these options are post-Etch (or at least post-RC1) though. > and if it's ignored now, we'll just have to fix it later when you get > the reports back from the users who hate this. I accept that. Cheers, FJP P.S. In some respects Colin's proposal for Ubuntu reminds me of a M$ wizzard where the user is taken by the hand and slowly guided through the available options. Great for really newbie users, but I'm not really sure if that's in line with basic concept of d-i as it will lead to more questions being asked and is likely to annoy more experienced users. [1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuExpress/PartitioningTool
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