What needs commenting about the installation process?

[Jerry3904]

[We are making very good progress with the new Manual, and will begin the review process soon.]

Because the Installer has lots of explanation in the left pane and because D-O's video is so helpful, we don't see any point in covering each screen in detail. Our concept is to simply put in the sequence of screenshots, and comment on the tricky, confusing or unexpected parts. For me, the prime candidate is Screen 2, where the user selects the partition for installation, since there is a big penalty if that is screwed up.

If you were watching over the shoulder of a new user doing an installation, what helpful advice would you would you like to give?

[dolphin_oracle]

How about a little description on the services screen

[Utopia]

Even if it's very uncommon, some still get the pop-up windows when using gparted in the installer. A small note that you shouldn't pay attention to them could help.
Henry

[Jerry3904]

Even if it's very uncommon, some still get the pop-up windows when using gparted in the installer.

Remind me of some details...

[Utopia]

It's the pop up windows asking for root permissions to access the hard drive. Adrian fixed this and it works fine on most computers.
I'm the only one who have reported it and it's only on one of my old laptops. Not sure how common it is and if it must be documented. But it's the only error I've seen using the installer, which is otherwise very good.
Henry

[mmikeinsantarosa]

If you were watching over the shoulder of a new user doing an installation, what helpful advice would you would you like to give?

I'm not certain if this is still present or not but during a brand new install, when I ran the custom partitioning tool to set up an ext3 + swap and then exited and then used the install on custom partitions, the newly created partitions weren't in the drop-downs on that dialog. If I backed up and exited the installer completely and started it back up, the partitions to install to (install on custom partitions) were now in those drop-downs. If nothing else, please cover using the whole disk vs custom partitioning. I've never checked to see if I get a swap using the whole disk either, always used the custom partition method

This is all from memory and there's been at least one weekend since my last install, so please forgive any inaccuracies in this.

mike

[Paul..]

In 2a. Choose Partitions when the user needs to choose a partition for /home, I think it would be better to label the default option (on the pull down button) as something other than just "root." I've always felt that "root" was too ambiguous for a novice user. How about (pick one):

"same partition as / (root)" -- to match the line above
or
"same partition as root" -- if there is not enough space on the button
or
"same as root" -- if there is REALLY not enough space
or
"use same partition as / (root)" -- if space is not an issue

[duane]

I got the pop up windows too.

I don't remember them in the last install so I thought they were fixed.

Not certain.

About the question about the /home partition, can it just show the available partitions again?

I always think showing the options available is the best bet.

[topcat]

I'm fairly sure this only happened in MX-14.3, I believe 14.2 was OK. I believe it was picked up early in Mepis 12 as a problem as well.

This problem is where if you have two hard drives and installing to one and wanting to use an existing swap that is on the other drive, you cannot see the swap on the other drive and select it.

For my 14.3 install, I had to repartion my drive so I could put a 2nd swap partition on the drive I was installing 14.3 to, so I could set up a swap partition to use.

Can anyone else confirm this as a recent problem that exists in 14.3 that was not present in earlier MX-14 versions?

So if it is a confirmed problem and no solution is implemented, then the workaround should probably be mentioned in the documentation (Is this a MX-14.3 manual or a MX-15 manual?)

[Jerry3904]

Thanks. Like Utopia's and Mike's comments, this seems to apply to GParted--maybe only when used in the middle of the Installer? Seems like maybe the pull-down menus are not refreshed in such cases. Not sure, of course.

Is this a MX-14.3 manual or a MX-15 manual?

Yes