I have done a ton of installations of SUSE and I basically see 4
different cases :
1. Clean disk - the installer prompts :
/swap
/
/home
Without explanations to the end-user why we propose it in this way (or
maybe just a small one :-)
2. Windows on the disk :
First prompt could be: Do you want to preserve or remove the existing
Windows installation ? With two choices which lead to different
templates.
In case the user wants to keep her Windows, our installer copes
perfectly with everything BUT the user is not able to decide how much
she wants to shrink the partition. Our script can tell them for example
:
"the partition is 30% used" and show them a bar where they see what's
used and on which they can move/choose visually how much they want to
free for Linux (hopefully a 100% ;-). AFAIK from my experience, this is
done in an arbitrary way now (at least from an user perspective).
3. SUSE on the disk:
in this case the installer can detect SUSE and can give the following
choices to the user : Do you want to preserve or remove the existing
SUSE installation ? With two choices which lead to different templates.
a/ upgrade the existing SUSE installation - automatically use the same
/ for the system, /swap and /home in the way they exist WITHOUT
formatting /home, but later during user-creation automatically change
the owner (in case the same user-name is created)
b/ a second separate installation (the user wants to have 10.2 &
10.3 at the same time for example) - in this case the installation can
proceed similarly to the Windows shrinking case whereas /home will be
shrinked in order to create space for the new installation or the user
is sent to Advanced partitioning and asked to create a partition in
which the new installation could be done -> Advanced partitioning
4. Another LINUX flavor on the disk :
installer detects another Linux and a partitioned disk and prompts: Do
you want to preserve or remove the existing Linux installation ? With
two choices which lead to different templates.
a/
- the partition is /swap, /, /home - basically the same structure as
SUSE would propose - the installer goes on and offers to format / and
/swap and use /home without formating it. In case a user with an
existing home folder is created, the scripts automatically change the
ownership of this folder.
- the partition is different from what SUSE would have suggested, so
the installer prompts a brand new re-formatting of the whole disk
b/ a second separate installation (the user wants to have SUSE &
and another Linux at the same time for example) - in this case the
installation can
proceed similarly to the Windows shrinking case whereas /home will be
shrinked in order to create space for the new installation or the user
is sent to Advanced partitioning and asked to create a partition in
which the new installation could be done -> Advanced partitioning
5. Advanced + Partition Resizing :
In all cases there should be a possibility to switch to advanced
partitioning without our "templates" where a skilled user could do what
they would like to do (as it is currently). In this advanced options I
would create a partition-resizing dialog with the help of which an user
can easily resize any partition of choice - no matter if it is a LINUX
or a WINDOWS partition. I have always lacked such a feature in the SUSE
installer.
What do you think ?
Nayden
Martin Schmidkunz wrote:
Hi Nayden,
I have a question - is this the mail-list where I can express some
ideas about the way an initial partitioning is handled (during
installation) ?