http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/item/7762/
Attitudes like: "If the user doesn't know how to partition he/she should ask for help from someone else more experienced" are not really the solution to attract new users (mainly people having their first Linux experience or without internet access).

Some problems:
1. One of the first things the partitioner does is to ask what kind of partition should be created. Well, more than 50% of the users would say: What is a partition ? (before even have to ask themselves "Why should I do it?").

2. People don't know they should create a "/" partition (does it sounds any intuitive at first glance ?)

3. People don't know why do they have to do it because "in te system X I don't need to do it ! Everything simply works out of the box". We should not think it as any natural concept.

Off course it has many more problems. Let us stop here and show some possibilities:

- An introductory screen with short and acurate information. One suggestion is:

First screen:
"Now you may choose to have your disk partitioned. This process can make your system more secure, responsive and easy to manage. "

Second Screen:
"Some advantages of partioning:
-Frequently people have their personal data (internet content, projects, documents under construction), system data (installed programs, configuration files, etc.) and some shared data (like music, video, documents, etc.). If you have more than one system you should use partitions to organize it. If you have only one system you may use partitions to separate the contents from each other. This technique permits, for example, one to erase the whole system data preserving your personal and shared data and allowing you to install a new system with your old content.

-You may want to install different file systems(fs) on each partition. One file system may be used to install other OS like Windows, Solaris, etc. Another fs may be used for software management while another one may be used to load big multimedia files faster or to keep your configuration files which are rarely deleted.

-You may give special permissions in the partition you want or use one as backup and deactivate it from external activities when are not using to protect your data.
"

After that the user will want to do partitions or if they don't they will at least know why not!

The installer should suggest a setup explaining it's usage:

"Partitions must have a name and a type:

Name - Type - Description
/ - Reiser - The / contains everything it is necessary to install the system.

/home - Reiser - This is where the users' personal data could be stored and managed.

/multimedia - xfs - This partition may hold music and video you rarely will delete but rather read frequently and other people could also see it.

Off course there is a device name and everything else, but first of all it should ask what to create and where to put it. Maybe the installer should not even ask where to put the partitions (like /dev/sda5...) because it's not so useful to know it if you are not an experienced user. But, off course, it should always follow an automatic behavior saving the user the work but always giving the option to know more.

It's enough for now. I appreciate your comments



[369 votes] Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #7762


]]> en-us Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:57:25 +0000 Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:26:21 +0000 QAPoll module http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/7762/ Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:18:51 +0000
Yea, I could definitely imagine a million ways to make it easier.]]> Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:32:22 +0000 Mon, 28 Apr 2008 23:59:38 +0000 Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:52:33 +0000
If not some clarity in the form of wizards or contextual tooltips and hints would be welcome. ]]> Fri, 02 May 2008 00:26:46 +0000
Although I haven't seen much more than one screenshot of Mandriva's installer, it looks simple, therefore seems good.

Also, I think the manual partitioning process would be eased if it allowed one to use a GUI-based tool (like a mod of gparted, perhaps). It could give people with just a little (not quite no) experience a good visual representation of what they're doing, as well as allowing them to grab and drag their other drives, and add new ones without understanding much more than what a hard drive does, while also giving advanced users the power to do what they wish.]]> Tue, 20 May 2008 06:01:43 +0000 Tue, 20 May 2008 15:33:23 +0000
That is our role as computer system designers. Giving a hint is always better than having the user to figure everything out by her/himself.

Pointing out information is also a good idea. Something like "Click here if you want to learn more". Further more it won't get in the way of any experienced user. Just one more benefit to new comers. If we keep them we will for sure raise the attention for this project (I mean, Ubuntu and the related stuff).]]> Wed, 21 May 2008 02:39:16 +0000
For a long time I've complained about the 'dumbing down' of partitioning in Linux installers. They are just so inflexible, and to my way of thinking, stupid! Virtually impossible to understand. :-(

I've become so disillusioned that I've adopted the approach of booting the box from a Knoppix LiveCD before booting the install disc. From the LiveCD I can open a shell and set up the complete partition table using fdisk. Sometimes, I go further and format the partitions before booting the install disc.

Upon booting from the install disc, I can tell the installer; Use the existing partitions and mount these file systems on them! And don't argue! :-D

IMHO fdisk is still the most flexible and easy to understand partitioning tool that I've seen.
]]> Wed, 21 May 2008 06:35:27 +0000 Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:05:15 +0000 as for the line "If the user doesn't know how to partition he/she should ask for help from someone else more experienced" i believe it should be more like "If the user doesn't know how to partition he/she should ask for help from ubuntuforums.org" > an unexperienced user is expecting to gain experience with a installation of an os, only a noob would want translations of the options.]]> Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:26:21 +0000