[PATCH_ES_] New storage methods for partitioning and formatting

[Richard Hughes]

On Sat, 2006-11-18 at 11:32 +0000, Peter wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Nov 2006 09:42:43 +0000, Richard Hughes wrote:
> 
> snip...
> 
> > I really don't understand your lack of understanding about desktop
> > console use - do you actually drop to the shell and type mkfs to floppy
> > disks? Or do you have to enter the root password in a GUI app? Or is
> > that GUI formatter you use setguid? Yuk.
> > 
> > 
> PMFJI. Yes, that is me! Although I'm old enough to remember using punch
> cards, so a $ peter at mars : prompt is hardly daunting! I always format from
> a prompt. I don't use KDE, Gnome, Xfce, but do use E and some programs
> from Gnome or KDE and ROX. Hal fits in nicely for those programs which
> need it.

Sure, and you can continue to use HAL disabling the bits you don't want
or need.

> > Please think about desktop users who don't know shell. You can disable
> > as much as you like on gentoo (which is fine BTW, as you'll know what
> > you are doing) but please don't say feature X shouldn't be in Y without
> > better reasoning than "...just calling system() with the proper
> > parameters..."
> > 
> > 
> Tricky balancing act here. Unless hal is integrated into a system and
> unless the user does not upgrade dependent modules, hal can be
> preconfigured and everything should run smoothly.

So it "just works" :-)

> For example, Slackware does not even provide Gnome. So, I was on my own
> when I wanted to try 2.16.1 and had to get dbus, hal, avahi, etc. all
> running which I did (neither Dropline, freerock or gsb had current
> versions -- probably because they can't make everything work yet!). 2.17.2
> however, and its requirement for hal >=0.5.8.1 was problematic. Not that
> Slackware is on the same level of popularity as other distros which offer
> Gnome or hal, just an example of how support issues could get burdensome
> should it be left to end users to install and configure hal. I know I
> would not be up to it!

Typical users don't configure HAL, typical users use Linux as a
operating system to do work, rather than tinker with the workings of the
internals. End users should never have to install HAL or worry about the
details of how the abstraction works (in my opinion). If you want to use
a distro X that does things it's own way, that is fine, but I don't
think that is rationale for not including new features in a product to
do things another way. It's not like we're saying "if you use HAL to do
formatting, you can't use mkfs.vfat".

Richard.