Re: Ubiquity - setting a separate /home by default
Hi Colin, I presume that you did not instruct the installer to format the old /home partition? (If you did, then why?) Actually yes, and I never realised how dumb it was until I read your message. I just was used to formatting before installing, so I guess I never gave it any thought. So, what is supposed to happen if you do NOT check the format box? Is everything but your /home destroyed, or is anything else kept? Probably a dumb question, but I've never done it so I can't know. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubiquity - setting a separate /home by default
Hi again, I should also point out (because I gave out misinformation on IRC in a moment of inattention) that this only works when you're using the manual partitioner and select a partition to mount as /, or equivalent. If you use the automatic partitioner and select use entire disk, then that's equivalent to wiping the whole drive and starting again. I really would like to discuss this. I think this would make sense in some cases, like having several distros coexisting in the same disk for example. But what if there is just ONE partition, with Ubuntu on it? In that case, why shouldn't /home be kept? My original proposal was intended for total newbies, the kind of people who would be afraid of the manual partitioner. I think your solution should especially help that kind of people, and that keeping /home if there is only one partition would be the right way to do so. That aside, I opened a thread about the issue at ubuntuforums. The members seem a bit uneasy about it, saying that it might bring problems. I think it would be good if you guys came over and shed some light on it. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=793772 this is the link. Thanks again :) -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubiquity - setting a separate /home by default
On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 09:57:58AM +0200, David Prieto wrote: Hi Colin, I presume that you did not instruct the installer to format the old /home partition? (If you did, then why?) Actually yes, and I never realised how dumb it was until I read your message. I just was used to formatting before installing, so I guess I never gave it any thought. Ah, OK. (I think this problem goes away once people stop being educated to explicitly format partitions that they want to keep.) So, what is supposed to happen if you do NOT check the format box? Is everything but your /home destroyed, or is anything else kept? Probably a dumb question, but I've never done it so I can't know. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbiquityPreserveHome lists the items that are removed. Essentially, it's everything that's owned by the packaging system and that would be likely to create bizarre conflicts if bits of it were from an old installation and bits of it were from a new one. /home, /srv, /root, /usr/local, /var/local, and in general any unrecognised parts of the file system are retained. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubiquity - setting a separate /home by default
On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 01:05:00PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 09:57:58AM +0200, David Prieto wrote: Hi Colin, I presume that you did not instruct the installer to format the old /home partition? (If you did, then why?) Actually yes, and I never realised how dumb it was until I read your message. I just was used to formatting before installing, so I guess I never gave it any thought. Ah, OK. (I think this problem goes away once people stop being educated to explicitly format partitions that they want to keep.) I should also point out (because I gave out misinformation on IRC in a moment of inattention) that this only works when you're using the manual partitioner and select a partition to mount as /, or equivalent. If you use the automatic partitioner and select use entire disk, then that's equivalent to wiping the whole drive and starting again. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubiquity - setting a separate /home by default
On Sun, May 11, 2008 at 10:51:59PM +0100, Sam Tygier wrote: David Prieto wrote: Some time ago, I posted this idea on Ubuntu Brainstorm, about the possibility to use a separate /home folder by default on systems where, depending on free disk space, it is considered advisable. The main reason for a separate home seems to be so that you can do a clean install without loosing your documents. Ubiquity can now install onto a partition that has an existing home directory without deleting it. It just removes the system directories. A separate home adds the hassle of filling up one partition, but have lots of space on another. This is indeed exactly the reason we haven't offered a prominent option of a separate /home; our partition management tools just aren't smooth enough to cope when (not if) people make the wrong choice for relative sizes. In fact, we implemented this option in Ubiquity as a response to the common wish of using a separate /home file system; it just wasn't exactly the response that had originally been asked for! However, I think it will cause many fewer problems than a separate /home would. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubiquity - setting a separate /home by default
Hi again, Ubiquity can now install onto a partition that has an existing home directory without deleting it. It just removes the system directories. Do you have to do anything special for that to work? I usually keep my /home in a separate partition, but I have another partition with some spare gigs to try Intrepid. This morning I reinstalled Ubuntu in that partition and it destroyed the previous /home folder. This is indeed exactly the reason we haven't offered a prominent option of a separate /home; our partition management tools just aren't smooth enough to cope when (not if) people make the wrong choice for relative sizes. Actually, the user won't have to make a choice at all. Do you think a good choice for an average user could be made automatically depending on the disk's size and free space? Because that's what I'm proposing. If you have lots of free space (enough to ensure that it'll be very difficult to fill / up, and that /home will be big enough that these few missing gigs will be negligible), the installer will recommend you to make a separate partition. If space is tighter, it won't. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubiquity - setting a separate /home by default
On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 09:51:29PM +0200, David Prieto wrote: Hi again, Ubiquity can now install onto a partition that has an existing home directory without deleting it. It just removes the system directories. Do you have to do anything special for that to work? I usually keep my /home in a separate partition, but I have another partition with some spare gigs to try Intrepid. This morning I reinstalled Ubuntu in that partition and it destroyed the previous /home folder. I presume that you did not instruct the installer to format the old /home partition? (If you did, then why?) If not, then that's a very serious bug. Please report it as soon as possible with all relevant details, including /var/log/installer/syslog and /var/log/installer/partman. This is indeed exactly the reason we haven't offered a prominent option of a separate /home; our partition management tools just aren't smooth enough to cope when (not if) people make the wrong choice for relative sizes. Actually, the user won't have to make a choice at all. Do you think a good choice for an average user could be made automatically depending on the disk's size and free space? Because that's what I'm proposing. No; I don't think such a good choice exists in general, particularly since when you get it wrong it's so horrifically painful to change. I also don't actually believe in the mythical average user ... If you have lots of free space (enough to ensure that it'll be very difficult to fill / up, and that /home will be big enough that these few missing gigs will be negligible), the installer will recommend you to make a separate partition. If space is tighter, it won't. Unfortunately, the installer has to deal with hard cases as well as easy cases, and I don't think it's acceptable to just give up with the hard cases. My bet is that many users won't think it's acceptable either, and so this will just keep on coming up. I think it's far superior to make the installer deal with /home in the way that people actually want (at the high level of I want to reinstall Ubuntu without destroying my data, rather than at the detailed level of which files should go on which partitions?), and to do so without having to make fundamentally painful decisions in the installer that are difficult to change later. It's very easy to say that a few missing gigabytes will be negligible, but if those are the few missing gigabytes that prevent Dad from editing his holiday videos then he'll be justifiably annoyed, particularly if this was an unnecessary waste of space. Multiple partitions can make sense on complex installations with dedicated system administrator capability, but on ordinary desktop installations they are needless complexity that shouldn't be recommended by default. Unless you have multiple disks (in which case some of the choices are made for you), the only reason to bother with them is the (very real) use case of wanting to preserve your data on installation; I think we should focus on that use case rather than on the suggested *implementation* of multiple partitions. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Re: Ubiquity - setting a separate /home by default
On Wed, 2008-05-14 at 00:33 +0100, Colin Watson wrote: On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 09:51:29PM +0200, David Prieto wrote: Hi again, Ubiquity can now install onto a partition that has an existing home directory without deleting it. It just removes the system directories. Do you have to do anything special for that to work? I usually keep my /home in a separate partition, but I have another partition with some spare gigs to try Intrepid. This morning I reinstalled Ubuntu in that partition and it destroyed the previous /home folder. I presume that you did not instruct the installer to format the old /home partition? (If you did, then why?) If not, then that's a very serious bug. Please report it as soon as possible with all relevant details, including /var/log/installer/syslog and /var/log/installer/partman. The paragraph quoted says that the partition into which Intrepid was installed had a /home *folder* not *partition*. It was said in response to someone saying that a separate partition is not needed because the installer no longer destroys /home directories inside the / partition. Obviously, the installer did delete the /home directory and not just the system directory. -- Mackenzie Morgan http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com apt-get moo signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
Ubiquity - setting a separate /home by default
Some time ago, I posted this idea on Ubuntu Brainstorm, about the possibility to use a separate /home folder by default on systems where, depending on free disk space, it is considered advisable. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/5390/ It has grown very popular, to the point of ranking #10 in popularity -there are over 8,000 ideas in the page-. I really do think it's a good idea so I'm bringing it here for discussion. Here are some mockups of how the Ubiquity dialogue should look. As you see, it does not even add an additional step to the installer, nor does it require any interaction or decision taking from the user, although it still allows him to. http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/7958/firstinstallaro2.png http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/9034/secondinstalliq1.png What do devs think of it? Would it be possible to see something like this in Intrepid? Regards, David Prieto. PS I'm not subscribed to the list, so if you reply to this message please CC me. Thanks in advance. -- Ubuntu-devel-discuss mailing list Ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel-discuss
