Installer deletes more files from existing partition than it says it will
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| debian-installer (Ubuntu) |
New
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
When using manual partitioning, and designating an existing partition containing files as the "/" partition, the installer issues a warning that its going to delete "directories containing system files", and lists (/etc, /lib, /usr, /var) as examples.
However, I had files in /old, and they were deleted too, much to my dismay. (The only thing that saved me here is that this was a btrfs filesystem, and I still had the ext2 backup snapshot. Whew!)
Is this intended behavior? Is /old considered a "directory containing system files"? So perhaps there's a bug here.
Even if /old _is_ properly in the list of directories to be nuked, there's a usability problem here. In my opinion, the warning message here is inadequate...it would be far better to actually scan the directories existing on the partition, and specifically report *which* directories it's going to delete. That will give users confidence that they're not about to get bitten.
You might also include an option to instead _move_ these old system directories into a safe place (say, underneath /old.backup).
I'm installing Ubuntu 16.04 Server, using whatever version of debian-installer comes on the CD.
