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List:       haiku-development
Subject:    [haiku-development] Re: FirstBootPrompt: Add notice about file/setting persistence
From:       Ryan Leavengood <leavengood () gmail ! com>
Date:       2021-05-15 14:34:25
Message-ID: CABeTnVNx3s=etg4ctyW7XXeBmiUexAi1Bqp2VN1Y_FAmWWmV6g () mail ! gmail ! com
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On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 3:27 PM Niels Sascha Reedijk
<niels.reedijk@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm not really sure whether this is the best thing to communicate. The
> way the Installer works is also an anomaly in the modern understanding
> on how OSes are installed, and I would obviously count that as one of
> the obscure features of Haiku. I know that it is a remnant of the BeOS
> Installer, which used a nice and novel way to install a complete
> system from a (read-only!) medium to a drive, and give you a 'system
> clone' function as a bonus (if you knew that it worked that way). I
> think that if we would design an installation process now, we would
> surely do it differently. But it works for now.

I personally would not do this differently and I suspect others would
agree. I think it is a pretty neat feature and the benefits outweigh
the drawbacks. It means as you say there really is no need for a
separate "system clone" utility and it makes it trivial to make a
custom Haiku install which is much, much more difficult for Windows or
Linux or probably most other operating systems.

I also think the persistence of a USB Haiku install is also a benefit.

Overall I think if we need any solutions in this area it is just more
clear and shorter text in the installer or first boot prompt, or an
alert or notification that explains things a bit. Maybe the user is
less likely to click past that in the way they don't read the "wall of
text" in the installer.

-- 
Regards,
Ryan

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