[Bug 533618] Re: Ubiquity manual partitioner "Edit partition" dialogue could be improved

[Simon Quigley]

** Changed in: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
       Status: Confirmed => Won't Fix

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/533618

Title:
  Ubiquity manual partitioner "Edit partition" dialogue could be
  improved

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Won't Fix

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: ubiquity

  This is a feature request. The behaviour is as described as of Lucid
  alpha 3 (as well as earlier versions), which comes with ubiquity
  2.1.27.

  In the manual partitioner included with the ubiquity installer,
  selecting a partition and clicking "Change..." brings up a dialogue
  with the options "New partiion size in megabytes", "Use as", "Format
  the partition" and "Mount point".

  The value of "Use as" can be "do not use partition" as well as several
  file system types "Ext4 journaling file system", etc, which defaults
  to "do not use partition". The value of "Mount point" is an editable
  string, with a set of optional predefined values "/", "/boot",
  "/home", etc, which defaults to an empty string.

  The presence of "do not use partition" in "Use as" makes the dialogue
  harder to use, since its default value is not the current partition
  type but "do not use partition". And the label "Use as" really only
  suits that option; "Type" would be a much better fit for the file
  system types.

  The "do not use partition" value would seem to go much better under
  "Mount point" instead, which could actually be called "Use as".

  In my opinion, this dialogue should be redesigned to look like this,
  from top to bottom:

  - "Use as" option. Selects whether to use the partition or not (i.e., to add it to /etc/fstab or not) and where to mount it. Selecting the "do not use" option (possibly by leaving the text field blank) would make the rest of the dialogue be greyed out, since what business would the user possibly have modifying a partition through the installer if it's not going to be used. A special value of "swap", included in the predefined list, would make it a swap partition.
  - "Type" option, allowing to choose between file system types, and defaulting to the current type of the partition. Should be greyed out when "do not use" is selected for "Use as" and pre-selected to "swap" and greyed out when "Use as" is "swap".
  - "New partition size in megabytes" option, defaulting to the current partition size (as it currently does). Greyed out when "Use as" is "do not use".
  - "Format the partition" option, defaulting to no, greyed out when "Use as" is "do not use" or "swap".

  The "Use as" option could also be split into a "Use partition"
  checkbox and a mountpoint selector. The "swap" option could become its
  own checkbox too if considered appropriate, greying out the mountpoint
  selector when checked.

  I always update Ubuntu by doing fresh installs keeping my "/home"
  partition and reformatting my "/" partition, and I've always thought
  that dialogue didn't quite fit the logic of what it's supposed to do.
  The above sounds a bit more reasonable to me.

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