🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 07:24:13 +0100, "dennis@home"
<dennis@killspam.kicks-ass.net> wrote:

>
>"Stephan Rose" <nospam@spammer.com> wrote in message 
>news:uOSdnfizv4RUE4vanZ2dnUVZ8rOdnZ2d@giganews.com...
>
>>
>> And honestly, I find "...this will destroy all data..." to be more than
>> clear enough. If someone can't understand the meaning of that I wonder if
>> they should be allowed to operate a toaster...nevermind actually
>> installing an operating system.
>
>Well yes its perfectly clear as long as you know what "data" is.
>So even a simple statement like that is assuming the user is computer 
>literate.
>I can easily see people thinking "well I didn't buy any data so I don't have 
>any to destroy".
>Its easy to make assumptions when you know about a subject. 

I do not think I am a neophyte wrt computers having cut my teeth on
DOS and used all flavours of Windows plus having built several
machines.  However, I did not find installing Ubuntu on a WINXP Pro
machine intuitive.  The actual installation was relatively staright
forward except when it came to the part to choose how to
format/partition the drive on which to install Ubuntu.  It is apparent
to me that anyone could slip up here with disasterous consequences.
Choosing 'manual' is clearly the the safest way to go.

Of course once you have gone through the exercise it  all becomes
'obvious' and this is the mistake many opf the contributors to this
thread seem to make.  The only test for how intuitive the installation
process is, is to allow a new user to use it.  In my case I did not
find the actual installation particularly intuitive and as for setting
up Grub you need a thorough understanding of how the various systems
(Ubuntu, Grub and WINXP) identify partitions and drives especially if
you are using all SATA drives, as I was.

What I finally did, as I wanted Ubuntu to be completely independent of
my WINXP installation, was to disconnect the drive on which WINXP was
installed and installed Ubuntu on a 'new' drive.  That was as straight
forward as could be and obviously no mistakes are possible.  I then
reconnected my WINXP HDD and had 'fun' configuring Grub to dual boot.
Now it is all done and I think I have an understanding of the process
anyone who can't understand it all must be mentally defficient! :-).