OSNews

You got it!

Item #3 very clearly says "no repartitioning the hard disk" - this has been optional in the Ubuntu installer as long as I can remember (you can simply follow the recommended defaults if you don't understand).

Correct me if I misunderstood: If you're referring to the installer shipped with the standard distro, following the defaults craps all the data you could have in your disk. If we think that the average user will try to install Ubuntu keeping the Windows partition/s, that's a complete disaster. And NTFS has been really supported since very recently, so there's no way I'll let any linux installer resize a NTFS partition.

I think this is a great idea: It's somewhat like a LiveCD without the performace reduction. It reminds me of the BeOS PE.

I don't recall what the defaults are in the standard Ubuntu installers and I haven't run Windows in ages, so I certainly can't comment on how it deals with a pre-existing Windows install. However, I've become fairly well impressed by Ubuntu of late and can only imagine that an installer designed for someone who is familiar with Windows and likely not familiar with Linux (perhaps I'm assuming here) will not be blindly wiping out any pre-existing Windows (or otherwise) installations by default.

I could have sworn that when another OS installation pre-exists, the Ubuntu installers (the traditional ones) will default to either using available free space or opting to resize existing partitions. Again, it's been awhile and I don't generally follow defaults, so I could be mistaken.

Also, didn't BeOS PE run in a type of loop-mounted filesystem within a file? I would assume this venture by Ubuntu is more of a full-blown physical installation (ie, new partitions, etc.). And as a previous comment by me stated, this is far better than a LiveCD since it makes it far easier for the user to continue using it if they like it since it's actually installed on their machine.

If it does format then it definitely doesn't do it without a big loud warning first.

In terms of NTFS. This doesn't do any NTFS resizing, it creates an EXT3 filesystem as a file on your existing NTFS partition, and loop mounts it. So there's very little risk to your NTFS partition. I should have thought that even if NTFS-3G did crap out, the most you're likely to lose is the loop-mounted file.

It reminds me of the BeOS PE.

And this installer works like BeOS - it downloads a big disk image file, puts it somewhere and mounts that file as a disk during boot. No repartitioning and etc is needed. Whole Ubuntu simply lives inside one file.

If you're referring to the installer shipped with the standard distro, following the defaults craps all the data you could have in your disk.

This seems to be the behavior with most distros, and it always strikes me as a terrible idea. It's my #1 reason for not giving out Linux install discs to pretty much anyone. LiveCDs are another matter. This Ubuntu thing seems like a great idea.

You'd install BeOS through a Windows based installation routine and you'd be able to start BeOS from within Linux or Windows 98 (Windows 2K was far trickier since the GUI bits didn't work) and it'd then reboot into a sort of disk image a'la Virtual PC, which would then increase it's size according to use, eliminating the need for partitioning the hard drive.

The Ubuntu strategy is somewhat different, relying on partitioning of the hard drive and traditional dual booting as opposed to the disk image like strategy chosen by Be, Inc.

And NTFS has been really supported since very recently, so there's no way I'll let any linux installer resize a NTFS partition.

Non-destructive NTFS resize has been available for a good while, and is both stable and secure. I've never had any problems resizing a NTFS partition with tools such as qtparted.