* Uwe Dippel (udippel at gmail.com) wrote: > [i]Is there a current Linux distro that actually configures itself so > this can happen? Most of the ones I've seen don't bother.[/i] > > Mike, does 'Debian' or 'Ubuntu' ring a bell? Both cater for this > situation in the text based installer. And surely a few more, that I > only haven't tried. I *am* disappointed, this is so obvious to do. > And is so obvious a feature needed and useful. [At times I really > question the vision of higher management in SUN. Having great > engineers doing the groundwork often is not enough for business > survival.] > > [i]Whether any of the > current installation scripts are smart enough to let you do so is > another question.[/i] > > What do you mean with 'smart'? I would be even more disheartened if > ZFS could only either distroy and recreate a whole pool. Does ZFS not > allow to simply dump files to all but a single location, rpool/export? > Take heed, I don't talk about *creating* a pool and leaving parts of > an old one untouched. > I only talk about adding two hooks to the installer script: One that > allows the user to keep the existing filesystem/pool for the new > installation (and skip the creation), and one that skips the eventual > writing of data into /export/home.
At this time, the GUI installer in OpenSolaris does not have any logic to handle this situation. It will blow away any existing ZFS pools named rpool and create a new one then write to that pool. When you choose a disk to install to, you're warned of the fact that the disk/partition is going to be erased. For now, if you want to reinstall you'll need to backup your data prior to doing so. Feel free to file an RFE/enhancement request on defect.opensolaris.org under Development -> Installer -> gui. Cheers, -- Glenn
