On Monday 04 Mar 2013 10:39:05 Marc Chamberlin wrote:
I decided to get my computers ready for the upcoming new release of openSuSE 12.3 and my approach has been to always install each release in a separate partition. That way I can continue to use the older release(s) until I get the new version up on running. (I have a few servers and other complications that does not make this a simple/easy upgrade process.)
Anywise, on a couple of systems, I found I needed to resize and/or move partitions around a bit, on my disk drives. So I trotted over to Yast2 and discovered that the partitioner, that comes as part of its tool set, does not allow one to do either, claiming that it can't because the partitions are already created and in use. Neither does the version of Yast that comes with the installation disk for openSuSE where such capability is most likely going to be required. I found that both rather surprising and frustrating, especially since over in the Windoz world tools like Partition Magic have had that sort of capability for decades now.
Strange, i launched the partitioner in Yast and it allowed me the option to resize and/or move - not that i actually did it. The buttons were active so i pressed the resize one and it allowed me pick a new size.
So I headed off to the internet in search of a better Linux partitioning tool and quickly came across one called GParted. And lo and behold it did exactly what I wanted! Not only that, but it has a nice GUI interface, like Partition Magic that makes it really easy to do. No need to figure out any of the low level details, just drag and drop partitions around and resize them via GUI images. AND I was really impressed by GParted in how careful it was in going about doing resizing and moving partitions around. Lots of testing being done to make sure things would go smoothly before actually making changes. It appears like a LOT of thought has gone into that tool, far more than even Partition Magic which doesn't appear to do nearly the same amount of preliminary testing. I think this is a REALLY FINE tool, from my first humble impressions, and Wikipedia says this tool has been around for about 8 years now...
So my question is this - Why, when there is a tool that is so much more capable, open sourced and freely available, is Yast2 sticking to using such a brain dead partitioning tool? Why not yank that tool out of Yast and replace it with GParted? Is it because no one has the time/inclination to improve the user experiences with Yast? Or has the knowledge about Yast been lost due to its designers moving on to other places and no one is available/capable to work on improvements to it? If so, then I can understand, and no I cannot volunteer either, I already have too many "volunteered" projects on my plate. I just wonder because this makes Yast appear as if it is really becoming dated. IMHO I think most users would be much happier if Yast guided them to using GParted instead of this archaic and crippled partitioning tool that now comes with Yast2.
I won't be using the Yast partitioner any more now that I have discovered GParted, and suspect I may have answered my own question, ;-) but still I am just curious about how much thought has been given to improving the partitioning tool in Yast2.... Marc... -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org