partman/confirm should not include warning if there's no data left to lose

[Ian Jackson]

Binary package hint: partman-crypto

I'm doing a test install of gutsy 20071009.1 i386 d-i. I selected use whole disk with LVM and encryption. This resulted in the machine spending quite some time apparently doing something to the whole disk.

Now, following passphrase entry, I'm presented with the prompt which warns me that various partitions are going to be formatted.

This is too late, because the partition table that was there before has been overwritten, and hence all of the previous filesystems destroyed. (I have checked this from VC2.)

I can't swear whether I got a warning earlier. If I did then this one is redundant. If I didn't then an earlier warning is essential.

[Ian Jackson (ijackson)]

I have double-checked this with a new install, and there _is_ a previous prompt.

The prompt about formatting filesystems probably ought to be skipped in all "use whole disk" cases. So perhaps this shouldn't really be reported against partman-crypto.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

In normal "use whole disk" installs, the disk hasn't been overwritten yet when you get the warning. This situation is different.

However, if you install onto a blank disk, then the partman/confirm question includes the text:

 WARNING: This will destroy all data on any partitions you have
 removed as well as on the partitions that are going to be formatted.

I think the rest of this question is appropriate (it's asking you to confirm the automatic partitioning setup), but that the warning is not appropriate in the case of a blank disk or one that has just been wiped by partman-crypto. partman should omit this paragraph from partman/confirm in those cases.

[Ian Jackson (ijackson)]

Colin Watson writes ("[Bug 151266] Re: confirmation screen appears too late"):
> However, if you install onto a blank disk, then the partman/confirm
> question includes the text:
>
> WARNING: This will destroy all data on any partitions you have
> removed as well as on the partitions that are going to be formatted.

Yes, that was the earlier warning.

> I think the rest of this question is appropriate (it's asking you to
> confirm the automatic partitioning setup), but that the warning is not
> appropriate in the case of a blank disk or one that has just been wiped
> by partman-crypto. partman should omit this paragraph from
> partman/confirm in those cases.

I would suggest that if the user chooses automatic partitioning, they
probably don't want to be asked to confirm it later. Is this question
really necessary in this case ?

Ian.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

It's the only opportunity you have to go back and tweak it. For intermediate users, it can save a fair amount of faff to be able to use automatic partitioning to do most of the work and then say "no, hang on, I really wanted reiserfs" or whatever. I agree that for novices it's not a very useful question but I think there's a range of abilities for which automatic partitioning is useful.

I also think there's something to be said for partman being consistent in always showing the partitioning layout after automatic partitioning, rather than hiding it when you're installing it onto a blank disk but showing it otherwise. It's convenient and useful to include the partitioning layout on the confirmation screen when you have existing partitions, and I think we are probably agreed that the confirmation is appropriate in that case. :-)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package partman-base - 139ubuntu1

---------------
partman-base (139ubuntu1) lucid; urgency=low

  * Resynchronise with Debian. Remaining changes:
    - Ubiquity integration: If PARTMAN_NO_COMMIT is set, then exit rather
      than running commit.d and finish.d scripts; add a partman-commit
      script; dump extra information to /var/lib/partman/snoop if
      PARTMAN_SNOOP is set; check for per-menu 'no_show_choices' file in
      ask_user and don't reshow the menu if it exists.
    - Don't skip over dmraid devices if the user chooses not to activate
      them.
    - If the only thing mounted on a disk is the installation medium and it
      uses more or less the whole disk, then silently exclude that disk; if
      the installation medium is mounted but doesn't use the whole disk,
      issue a warning that partitioning may be difficult; if anything else
      is mounted, offer to unmount it. partman/filter_mounted=false disables
      this.
    - Use ext4 as the default filesystem for new partitions.
    - Use linux-swap(v1) instead of linux-swap(new) to reflect changes to
      parted.
    - Build with -O2 on powerpc to avoid a suspected toolchain bug.
    - Build against parted 2.2.
    - Apply optimal alignment constraints to new partitions, or when
      maximising an extended partition. Tell libparted not to use cylinder
      alignment.
    - Add an ALIGNMENT_OFFSET command which can be used to detect whether a
      partition is misaligned.
  * Don't warn about data loss on formatted/removed partitions when there
    are no such partitions (LP: #151266).

partman-base (139) unstable; urgency=low

  * base.sh: consistently use 'disk' as variable in humandev().

  [ Updated translations ]
  * Amharic (am.po) by tegegne tefera
  * Hebrew (he.po) by Omer Zak
  * Slovenian (sl.po) by Vanja Cvelbar
 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:13:27 +0000