'writable' should not be introduced as a new label for persistence partition in Ubuntu 20.04

[Akeo]

This is a follow up on https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/casper/+bug/1863672 since a handful of Ubuntu users and software developers do have a valid concern that a change, that could have very negative consequences, is being introduced in 20.04 with little or not oversight, and that, so far, our efforts to have this reviewed have been all but fruitless.

The root of the matter is that, as of the current 20.04 daily builds, the casper package plans to introduce a *new* 'writable' label, alongside existing 'casper-rw' label, as a means to detect persistent partitions.

Our concern is that the choice for the new label appears to seemingly have been decided by a single person, outside of any consultation with other Ubuntu maintainers, and is based on a very flimsy foundation.

For one thing, many of us think that there is little need to introduce a new alternate label for persistent partition, where the label it is meant to replace ('casper-rw') was more than good enough for its purpose.

As per #1863672, the maintainer who introduced the label justified their choice by indicating that they thought 'casper-rw' was too obtuse and that 'writable' would be clearer, but we actually think this will be shifting the problem in the completely opposite direction, with 'writable' being way to generic to provide anything of value to end users to indicate why the partition is labelled that way (at least, 'casper-rw' indicates that this has something to do with 'casper', which is a searchable term that least to an explanation about persistence, whereas 'writable' will never accomplish the same thing).

Also, if a new "more generic" label for persistent partition is to be introduced, we would STRONGLY advise Ubuntu to use this as an opportunity to bridge the gap with regards to what other distributions, such as Debian, use as labels for persistent partitions, and therefore instead go for the current *GENERIC* label that Debian Live settled on, which is 'persistence' (as referenced in https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/538665/314167 and other location).

Much better than 'writable', 'persistence', while being more generic and less obtuse than 'casper-rw', would certainly provide an indication to Ubuntu end users as to the nature of the partition they are dealing with, even if they have no clue about persistence.

Otherwise, we are confident that there are going to be unfamiliar Ubuntu users, who are exploring a drive in a partition manager and see only 'writable' as an indication for what a partition is being used for, choosing to delete that partition on account that they have no idea that it is being used to store their personal data, in an attempt to reclaim free space. After all, one can very much see 'writable' as an *invitation* to write or erase the data from said partition in order to reclaim space.

On the other hand, when using 'persistence', we expect that inexperienced users may at least try to perform a search for a term they might be unfamiliar with and in the process understand that this 'persistence' partition is the one that contains their valuable personal data, and should not be erased.

And that alone is a strong argument against introducing 'writable' as the new label, even without considering how helpful it would be for users interested in persistence to try to *BRIDGE* the gap between distributions, by trying to harmonize the labels that persistent partitions can be created under instead of *CONFUSING* Linux users further by introducing a completely new label that nobody seems to have been asking for.

Also, If Ubuntu 20.04 goes with introducing 'writable', I don't feel like I should have to point out how users *ARE* going to be utterly confused when they search on the internet for guides on they should label their partition to enable persistence, as they are going to find all sorts of seemingly contradictory information there ("You should label your partition 'home-rw'", "No, you should label it 'casper-rw'", "No, you should label it 'persistence'", "No, you should label it 'writable'").

So, can we PLEASE stop this UTTER MADNESS, and at least have more than one person review the proposed introduction of 'writable' as the new allowed label for persistent partition, and review what we feel are very valid concerns.

By opening this bug, we therefore URGE Ubuntu to either *FIX* the current proposal, by introducing 'persistence' instead of 'writable' as the proposed new label for persistent partitions, or *DROP* the introduction of a new alternate label altogether.

And we would also greatly appreciate if someone else other than the person who has been pushing to introduce this change, was to review and weight in on the current proposal, as, judging from #1863672, we it does seem to us like the original maintainer behind that proposal has been unwilling to engage in any further discussion on the topic (which is what actually led us to open this new bug report).

Thank you,

/Pete

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Akeo (pbatard)]

Can someone please look at it with a little bit of urgency?

The release date for 20.04 is approaching fast, and no action means Ubuntu maintainers are going to do a major disservice to persistence users, by confusing the persistent landscape further, even as it already is a complete mess.

The time to consider how negatively Linux users are going to be affected by the *unilateral decision* described above is now. Otherwise, I guess I will have no choice put to point the many Linux persistence users, who are and will continue to be confused on whether they should use 'casper-rw', or 'home-rw', or 'persistence', or now 'writable' as a persistent partition label, to this very issue. At least, even if I will then have failed to manage to bring some sanity to persistence partition creation, it may demonstrate to those same users just how little the Ubuntu maintainers seem to have cared about them prior to the release of 20.04, and maybe make them consider switching to a distro that does better in that respect.

You still have a chance to bridge the gap and stop this persistence madness.

But it needs to happen *NOW*.

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

Ubuntu has been using "writable" & "/writable" for many of its products: Ubuntu Touch, Ubuntu Core 16, Ubuntu Core 18, Ubuntu Core 20 and now also Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server. Thus it's a standard name that is widely used across many Ubuntu products.

It was an oversight that casper was not changed, which is now fixed. Some other distributions also use "writable" e.g. Raspbian. "persistent" and variations have never been used in Ubuntu.

[Oliver Grawert (ogra)]

side-note: /writable was introduced in 2014 FWIW

[Akeo (pbatard)]

Hi Dimitry, I appreciate the reply.

Looks like I stand corrected.

I am finding some evidence, as you indicate, that "writable" has been previously used independently of casper (with initramfs it seems) as a label to decide whether a partition should be mounted rw or ro. Maybe I missed something, but it wasn't made clear to us in the bug I linked to that "writable" came from a label that was already being used, rather than something brand new that was being introduced with 20.04.

In this case, even though I think 'writable' is unfortunately very generic and will therefore make searching for help on any related topic problematic for end users, I can't really object to that label being introduced in casper, and I therefore withdraw this bug.