Feature suggestions: optionally placing home folder into separate partition during ubuntu install

[Daniel Hollocher]

>>> That is a common misconception. Reinstalling Ubuntu on the same
>>> partition doesn't lose the user's data either.
>>>
>>> A problem that is both real and more interesting, is working out why so
>>> many people have that misconception, and how we can correct it.
>>
>> Is this really a misconception?  I thought there was a point in time
>> that you did need to have a separate /home for what we are talking
>> about.
>
> You needed a separate home for that until Hardy, if memory servers.
> So it's not an ancient feature, but it's not exactly new at this point either.
>
>> Also, do you know how widespread the policy is?  ie, is it Ubuntu
>> only,  debian based distros, or all of linux?
>
> I have no idea. I imagine it's part of Ubiquity, not debian-installer,
> which would make it Ubuntu-specific.

I imagine you would have to make it part of the gui of whatever
installer supports it if you wanted more people to use the feature.
Otherwise, it is a bit too complicated to communicate to people.  You
can't really expect people to follow every precise direction you give
them, and in this case if they don't, they could loose their data.
Maybe you could put a button that offers to reuse an existing
partition layout, clean installing but saving use data.  The button
could go next to the "install side by side" and "use entire disk
options" and maybe scan fstab for the partition layout.