On Monday 24 January 2005 17:46, Scot L. Harris wrote: >On Mon, 2005-01-24 at 17:28, Jeff Vian wrote: >> Exactly my point. >> >> It seems Gene and others would like fdisk as one of the options >> during the install instead of *forcing* all those who have no clue >> about getting to a shell (Shall we say newbies) to use only the >> one tool someone has deemed safe (DD) or allowing it to >> autopartition. Both of which choose their own way of organizing >> the partitons, and it seems to me that autopartitioning uses LVM >> (in addition to destroying existing partitions), which may not be >> ideal for some. >> >> What I do not understand is why choices are being removed from >> menus and hidden. I thought this was about freedom to choose, as >> well as making it attractive and easy for new users. > >^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > >I think the idea is to make it relatively easy for new users. And > the best way to do that is provide defaults that work for 90% or > better of most users. For those that have progressed beyond > "newbie" stage and fall in that 10% of users that have legitimate > requirements for non-standard setups or just plain want to mess > with their systems it should not be to hard to expect them to spend > a little time reading the release notes and other documentation > that is widely available on the web or at the book stores. > >If you present a complex list of options for a new user who for the > most part has NOT read the release notes or any other documentation > for that matter, they will invariably start poking the buttons and > frobbing the knobs which generally results in a sub-optimal install > or at worst a seriously broken system. > >I think many people forget that new users don't have the many years > of experience that many people on this list seem to have. And by > limiting the initial set of choices for new users a better > experience can be delivered that is a good thing. The new user > gets the immediate gratification that most users want with very > little sweat involved. Those that progress to the next stage and > research questions they have will find a whole lot more options > available behind the curtain that would have perplexed and confused > them at first. > >So how about we leave this topic where it began, Disk Druid works > for a large percentage of the user base and fdisk is available for > the experienced user if it is needed. All very well and good Scot, provided one can do an ctl+alt+F2 and get a shell. At the time I was stymied and came unwrapped about being forced to use DD against my will, all a ctl+alt+Fx would get me is a blank screen with no prompt. I've repeated that install several times also, and it seems it works about half the time over a several day period. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) 99.32% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly Yahoo.com attorneys please note, additions to this message by Gene Heskett are: Copyright 2005 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.
