Just tried the installer to see what the deafult option was. It was the OpenBSD partition and can't remember what the deafult option is without a OpenBSD partition. If that defaults to Whole you would have a better point. (thinking of the keyboard buffer when impaciant) Otherwise pressing W(hole) is a yes.
I always do a install instead of upgrades. I can make the same mistake with disklabel on a machine which has a different layout from my most used layout. I can really understand your opinion. But when your using OpenBSD it is expected that you are know what your dealing with. It is not a "populair" OS which hold your hand. This year is I use it for 20 years and the installer is just simple and straight forward. One of the reasons I find OBSD more easy to use then other OSes. ________________________________ Van: owner-m...@openbsd.org <owner-m...@openbsd.org> namens Parodper <parod...@gmail.com> Verzonden: maandag 28 juni 2021 18:21 Aan: misc@openbsd.org <misc@openbsd.org> CC: dera...@openbsd.org <dera...@openbsd.org> Onderwerp: Re: Adding a prompt on the installer before overwriting the partition table O 28/06/21 ás 16:53, Theo de Raadt escribiu: > Parodper <parod...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> I think there should be a prompt in the installer before >> overwriting the partition tables. The current behavior is, when >> selecting the whole disk, to overwrite the partition table >> directly. > > Isn't it kind of obvious that selecting the whole disk requires > overwriting the partition table? That assumes that people don't make mistakes, like I did. Having the default option be «delete everything **without asking**» seems to me as good place to make mistakes. At least the edit option requires more than just one key press to delete your data > The installer has acted this way for more than 20 years. It is well > documented. Haven't heard a complaint in a decade. Did you read the > installation docs? There have been multiple complains: https://marc.info/?t=147203742200002&r=1&w=2 https://marc.info/?t=133112352000002&r=1&w=2 https://marc.info/?t=94379097400001&r=1&w=2 I decided to start a new thread because those old threads usually end with a «diff please» or centering too much on how the first user wrote the mail. > I doubt other major operating system installers ask you again if you > are sure you want this hidden but obvious step, so why should our > installer? Off the top of my head I couldn't tell you how other OS do it, but the Debian installer puts the template into the partitioning program, and the program asks no matter the option chosen. I would have suggested something like that, but I preferred to start with something more simple. > Meanwhile, your change probably breaks including auto and templated > installs -- because a newly introduced question which isn't answered > will receive \n, and without y\n it fails. That is a good complain. I have no experience with automated installs, so I don't know how they do it. But if the defaults have to be explicit then, instead of changing the fdisk option, I propose changing the default to the «(E)dit» option. On the other hand, if you don't want to change the installer interface in any way there is nothing more to discuss. > Furthermore I think the whole concept of installing multiple > operating systems on one disk and multiple-booting is increasingly > complex to the point of being a waste of time. Multiple partitions are not only used for having multiple operating systems. I usually have a data partition on my machines. > Major operating systems don't make it trivial. Depending on your definition of «trivial», yes they do. > Why should the smaller systems be held to the standard of making it > easy? I am not suggesting that OpenBSD should change the install process for a tablet-based interface. It is a small change for which I have suggested a diff. > Sorry to break the news, but as a rule the most fragile > configurations of any software are the ones unused by the developers. > This is definitely one. None of us use multiboot. True, but this is only tangentially related to multiboot.
