Re: Disk Druid - Fedora flame #1

From: Craig White (craigwhite_at_azapple.com)
Date: 01/19/05

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    To: gene.heskett@verizon.net, For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@redhat.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 10:19:52 -0700

    On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 09:27 -0500, Gene Heskett wrote:
    > On Wednesday 19 January 2005 08:39, Timothy Murphy wrote:
    > >On Wednesday 19 January 2005 04:54, Matthew Miller wrote:
    > >> I don't think I ever said it can do no wrong. I just said it
    > >> always works fine for me. And that it's ridiculous to just keep
    > >> saying that it should be thrown out with no replacement.
    > >
    > >Did anyone say that, or anything like it?
    > >All I asked, as the original poster, was that
    > >the fdisk option be brought back.
    >
    > Yes, I did. IMO, any tool that has the potential to screw things up
    > as badly as DD has for me the last 2 times I used it, either needs to
    > be thrown out with the bath water, or seriously massaged to prevent
    > future scenarios such as I've had.
    >
    > The screwups in my cases were nearly identical, starting with its
    > ignoring the drives existing partition table, making up its own
    > tables up out of whole cloth, and putting /boot in /dev/hda5, which I
    > don't believe works, ever. 

    ----
1 - problem is not the tool - it's the user who doesn't understand how
the tool works
2 - /boot can be in any partition on any drive if the BIOS permits -
easily BIOS from the last 3-4 years should be able to handle this. It
does work and you are living in old world
3 - DD offers the option to use existing partitions or to automatically
create partitions. You obviously have made the wrong choice on more than
one occasion.
----
> 
> It needs to 1) show you what its going to do to *every disk in the 
> system*, 
---
it does
---
> and 2) what it does show you is to be carved in stone, not 
> re-arranged willy-nilly after you've clicked on the next button.
---
it doesn't
---
>   And 
> it needs to be capable of being completely bypassed in the case of 
> already having a known good partition table you don't want messed 
> with.
---
You are making the case for an idiot-proof Disk Druid application. That
has merit. You should be experienced enough to be able to comprehend the
program and what it is doing. The interface is supposed to be simplified
for clueless users and my guess is that you are too impatient to
consider the ramifications of the choices you are making
---
> The last time I spent probably 15 minutes wandering around in it 
> trying to figure out a way out of it without its doing anything, and 
> finally split up /dev/hdb into two small partitions and an already 
> existing /swap just so it had something to do, and it completely 
> wiped the system when I clicked next.
---
you admitted defeat and the fact that you didn't understand what it was
going to do and then clicked the 'NEXT' button. Why would you expect
different results?
---
> Everyone defending it claims it can do so much more than fdisk, but 
> I've yet to see any evidence of this greater capability, other than 
> its capability of totally screwing things up.  If there is a list of 
> increased capabilities DD has that fdisk doesn't, then lets see a 
> list of them, right here in front of all us frogs so we can debate 
> the utility of each of these capabilities.  I'll even leave some room 
> here for them to be listed:
> fdisk works just fine, whats the problem with bringing it back as an 
> option for those of us who are used to it?
----
as discussed - fdisk is available to knowledgeable users in a virtual
console.
as for putting fdisk back as a choice - obviously the 'development' team
has made the decision (several versions ago) to drop it from anaconda
setup. Your comments here are akin to 'pissing in the wind'
Craig
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