[Possible Spam]::Re: CD integrity checking (Re: Colony 3, Test report)

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 08:31:21PM -0400, Alvin Thompson wrote:
> Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> >I don't agree.  If the user chooses to erase the contents of their disk and
> >install Ubuntu, obviously they didn't have anything on the disk which they
> >wanted to keep, and trying again with a good CD is not a big deal.  If they
> >chose to resize, they haven't lost anything.
> 
> unless, as i mentioned before, that's their only computer that can burn 
> CDs. it's a major pain in the neck at that point, because now you have 
> install some other OS (if you have one) just to burn a new CD.

Even with a CD integrity check, there are dozens of ways that the install
can go wrong.  It's simply a bad idea to wipe out the only system that you
could use to recover from an installation problem.

> also, what if someone were upgrading their system? now they're left with a
> computer in some hosed, possibly unusable, 'in-between' state. any way you
> slice it, it's a big headache.

If they have flaky RAM, or a failing hard disk, or they encounter a
packaging bug, etc., they're in the same boat.  Perhaps we should run a few
mandatory passes of memtest86+ before allowing the user to install? ;-)

-- 
 - mdz