hindsight/user experience

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Fri, Apr 08, 2005 at 12:30:28PM -0400, John Billings wrote:

> I'm afraid something like this could happen elsewhere and create a bad
> introduction to Gnu/Linux for someone. So my point is please reconsider
> distributing a live cd and an install cd together. I thought about sending
> this to the developer list, but thought it might be a good story to relate
> to users as well, and there are probably some developers on here. 

The installer displays a prominent warning and asks the user for
confirmation before making any destructive changes; it defaults to the safe
option.  This is the only realistic safeguard we can create against this
situation. 

Indeed, this can happen just as easily with an install CD alone: users who
are accustomed to a single operating system do not necessarily realize that
installing Linux could overwrite their Windows system (after all, installing
Adobe Acrobat doesn't create such a problem, and they're both programs,
right?).

-- 
 - mdz