The installation routine has been thoughtfully designed and does exactly as intended. OpenBSD caters to the craftsman, not the casual user. If a user is not committed to a high level of responsibility (and freedom), install-time is a great time for a wake-up call. I doubt Leonardo will make this same mistake again. He has learned, as we all have, to look at tools from an enhanced perspective.
On Mar 8, 2012, at 9:41 AM, Raimo Niskanen wrote: > On Thu, Mar 08, 2012 at 02:43:46PM +0400, Mo Libden wrote: >> 08 P<P0QQP0 2012, 14:22 P>Q "Dmitrij D. Czarkoff" <czark...@gmail.com>: >>> On Wed, 2012-03-07 at 16:23 +0000, Dennis den Brok wrote: >>>> >>>> "Use (W)hole disk (writes to disk immediately) or (E)dit the MBR? > [whole]" >>>> >>>> While the FAQ is indeed clear, the installer's simplicity appears >>>> at that point a little deceptive, in that one (I know I was) is >>>> tempted to think that such a user-friendly installer would not harm >>>> one so easily... >>> >>> Don't you think it all gets too far? One should generally expect that >>> choosing "use the whole disk" means that all the data on disk will be >>> lost. If the user doesn't pay attention to installer, this wording won't >>> help. Furthermore, the more chatty installer is, the less amount of >>> newcomers would be reading the messages. >> >> my sentiments exactly. if they don't think about what's written, will >> it make it better to write some more? >> >> besides, what does exactly "writes to disk immediately" mean? >> ok, it writes, so what? will it change MBR? will it change >> something else? or will it just read sector and write it back >> (i.e. no actual change)? > > The point is that when you choose [W] or [Enter] the MBR is overwritten > with new content erasing all existing partitions but if you choose [E] > you get to the MBR editor, where you will have to explicitly order > it to write to the MBR. And the immediate action of the first choice > is not obvious from the installer dialogue. > > This I think shows better what your choices are: > > (W)rite the MBR to use the whole disk or (E)dit the MBR? [write] > > Where the two operations Write and Edit have a clear contrasting meaning, > or: > > Write the MBR to use the (W)hole disk or (E)dit the MBR? [whole] > > to not having to change an installer script variable name (a lesser change) > > > -- > > / Raimo Niskanen, Erlang/OTP, Ericsson AB
