In manual partitioning, choosing partition for "/" is non-obvious

[impute]

This was found in 8.04.

Boot from standard Desktop CD.
Run installer, select default language, keyboard.
Select Manual install
Select partition to install from list.
Select Edit partition
Set mount point to "/"

There is a check box on the list of partitions to make it easy to format one or more partitions, but to select a partition to install Ubuntu to I need to edit the partition, and know that I kneed to set the mount point to "/". Neither of these are simple enough.

I see two options:
  Add a "Guided install to an existing partition" option.
  Modify the advanced install to include an "Install Ubutu here" radio button in the list of partitions.

[Michael Losonsky (michl)]

I am assuming that you have checked manual partition and
now you are looking at the window with a list of the
partitions. When you highlight a partition, you see a
menu on the bottom of the window and one of the
buttons is for editing the partition, setting mount points,
and so on. It seems intuitive to me but perhaps I am missing
something. Please explain.

[TerryG (tgalati4)]

I agree with reporter. To someone familiar with Linux and partitioning, it's easy. To a novice, it's unclear what should be done to select the installation partition. I think the issue is: If I don't want to wipe the entire disk, I have to go into manual partitioning--and I have to have some Linux experience with File Systems to understand where things are supposed to go.

Guided partitioning works in many cases, but as more Ubuntu users try it for the first time, there will be more cases where guided partitioning options are not sufficient for the user.

Has anyone on the ubiquity team published a use-case map? Perhaps a button with a pop-up flowchart could aid users who get stuck at this point.

[TerryG (tgalati4)]

Marked to Confirm to preserve reporter's comments.

[impute (impute)]

> Please explain.

One problem is with the layout. If the purpose of this dialog is to allow the user to select a partition to install to, then the user should be able to just select the partition. Requiring the user to open another dialog is unnecessary. The user is also trying to overwrite a partition, not edit it so clicking on the "edit partition" button isn't very intuitive.

The bigger problem is that while an experience user knows what setting a mountpoint to "/" means, a novice user has no idea what this does. If I've just moved to Ubuntu from Windows I might know what the "c:" or "system partition" is, but there is a good chance that this installer is the first unix application I've used so "/" has no meaning to me.

This is partly about uses cases and making sure that the common tasks are easy, but also about making things easier for users with limited knowledge.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

There is a guided - use free space option. Is that not sufficient?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ubiquity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]