A few remarks about the 18.3 installer

[ychaouche]

Hello guys !

This is my first time installing MX Linux, I downloaded the 18.3 release. Here are a couple comments I would like to share with the team

1/ Partition labels should be read from the partition table (or whatever they are). The installer shouldn't suggest new names unless no labels are found.
2/ I don't understand why the installer should care about data in /home. It should not touch it in any case, the "preserve data" shouldn't be an option. It should be mandatory. If I accidently forget to check that box or don't see it my data is simply gone. Why format the /home partition by default ?
3/ Detect and use swap partitions by default ? (I don't know if any other distro does this and wonder why it's not already a default)

I look forward into installing MX Linux and trying it ! (see my problem in this other thread) wish me luck :)

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[mxer]

1/ Partition labels help you know what is on it.
2/ You may want to re use your /home, or you may want to overwrite an old one from another distro, or even re use a partition that had something completely different on it.
3/ Usually good to use any that are found, but could be a security risk, depending on how you use the 'live' session.

[dolphin_oracle]

I don't understand comment 3. are you glad we use the swap, or not glad we use the swap.

[Jerry3904]

@ychaouche: welcome to the Forum and to MX Linux!

[ychaouche]

I don't understand comment 3. are you glad we use the swap, or not glad we use the swap.

Yo dolphin_orcale :)

The swap partition isn't selected by default, for example it could detect that /dev/sda5/ is a swap partition and use that as swap. mxer argues that this can be a security issue. I can not think of any use case where this can be an issue. If you have physical access to a machine you can do whatever you like, and this includes formatting the swap partition of another distro (or putting malicious code in there).

[mxer]

If you have access & use someone's machine, running 'live', it could leave some of your important data in swap, (maybe bank details, or similar), in this situation, I wouldn't want it automatically to be used.

[dolphin_oracle]

fact is, the swap is available whether it selected in the installer or not.

I believe we used to allow "use existing" but we made a change when we started providing LUKS encryption.