Non destructive install on live CD is particularly important.

[Ian Soutar]

Non destructive install on live CD is particularly important.

All previous versions of the live CD have offered it on all 
distributions. Kanotix, Knoppix for example offer it and Kubuntu offered 
it until the Forced format was added in this version.

(I am not sure if this has also been lost in Ubuntu as it was in Kubuntu).

I am not saying non-formatting should be by default. But the user should 
not be locked out. The live CD is great for a re-install or even when 
changing from one distro to another.

For example with the Knoppix CD the following scenario was possible and 
i used it with great success.

1/ I started with Suse installed.
2/ I ran a knoppix live cd and used it to erase the operating system but 
I kept my home directory.
3/ I renamed home to home_old
4/ I did a knoppix install to hd and elected to not format the drive. 
Formatting was not required because at this point it was blank excent 
for home_old.
5/ Finally I booted the system and simply copied or moved all the stuff 
I wanted like email configuration, music etc. to the new home directory.

Voila ! a new O/S with everything important retained.

Sorry if I was vague about the advantages.

My point is that Kubuntu had this advantage until the new version 6.06.1 
came out that forced the formatting of all my valuable data. Of course I 
saved to an external drive and copied it back but that added a full hour 
to the install. I had a few curses to mutter during that hour!!

I install linux for donated computer for poor families. The above 
sequence of steps for a maintainer is a great and efficient way to do it.

Hopefully it gets fixed.

Thanks,
Ian.