Oddball wrote:
Rajko M. schreef:
On Monday 24 March 2008 09:50:25 am Stephan Kulow wrote:
Solution: Ask before you give proposal. This will help openSUSE to prevent user from accidental deletion his data. But we don't want that. So we do an educated guess and if it's wrong, you click a button "create new proposal". If it's right, there is nothing to be pressed.
Educated guess has some logic behind. What can be logic behind pointing for deletion installation with released version that can contain user work, custom settings, installed programs and data, that is not replaceable, instead of Alpha version. I can see simple logic to delete the oldest version that user probably want to replace, but there is also possibility that user expects that one of installations will be resized to create space for new. Just as we a careful with windows, we can be with other Linux distributions. Missing warning what we are going to do right in the proposal window, in plain text and language, can lead to really unpleasant surprises if user misread partitions /dev/sdXN. Something like: "WARNING: Installer will delete openSUSE 10.3 installation on /dev/sdXN, to create space for new installation." is much better than only: "Delete /dev/sdXN. Create ......"
How many Ubuntu users you expect to carefully read and understand current text on first attempt to install openSUSE? Most of them are not far from windows logic to simply accept installer proposal and later deal with details. If they rely on such logic, and openSUSE installer wipes their Ubuntu, in majority of cases we will never hear about their (failed) attempt to use openSUSE, but their friends and relatives will. I still find question the best, if not only option, in cases with multiple choices, where some of them will delete user data. I agree on this. Many times it anoyed me, that other linux distro's were not seen as what they are. So i have to write all partitions down on a piece of paper, to be certain not to delete or install on the wrong partition. I think sophisticated software can respect even Linux distro's as M$.
This made me break out into a hearty chuckle. Not many days ago I was installing Kubuntu 8.04 beta 6 in a VirtualBox VM, when up came a message which could only be interpreted as Kubuntu WILL "wipe any partitions you already have". I read it several times and though logic says it wouldn't happen, I could not put any other interpretation on it. If I wasn't installing into a VM, I would have stopped right there - SCARY! even for a seasoned Linux hand. Language has to be precise in these matters and it means putting yourself in the position of the target audience - it's learned from feedback such as you provide, things that are clear to the developer can cause confusion and catastrophic consequence to other developers and users, even one wrongly worded sentence can do it. I once gave operator training - with my well prepared notes and slides - to a large company's mainframe ops where it's customary for them to set up an operating procedure handbook that they all work from, shock horror when they asked me to proof read the document - thoughts such as "I never said that" kept running through my head and extensive modifications had to be made. Now being made wiser, subsequent training took on a different slant. Regards Sid. -- Sid Boyce ... Hamradio License G3VBV, Licensed Private Pilot Emeritus IBM/Amdahl Mainframes and Sun/Fujitsu Servers Tech Support Specialist, Cricket Coach Microsoft Windows Free Zone - Linux used for all Computing Tasks --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org