Why does the default Ubuntu Install format the Hard Disk?

[Mike Douglas]

On 12/29/05, John C. McCabe-Dansted <gmatht at gmail.com> wrote:
> At a installfest it was suggested that it would be more user-friendly to
> automatically partition the hard disk by default, as with SUSE. Has there
> been a discussion of why Ubuntu chose "format" as the default? (I cannot find
> one on Google).

SUSE is the first I've heard of that does this; is this activity
common now? Personally, all installations of an operating system that
I have delt with have always defaulted to installing over the entire
hard drive.

Considering how experimental NTFS repartitioning is, relying on it as
even an option for the installation process seems dangerous. Any data
lose caused by that might reflect negatively on Ubuntu. Automatic
partitioning of FAT32 and ReiserFS/EXT3 (as an option) would seem more
sane, atleast until the NTFS drivers become more stable.

--
Mike