On 2025-02-25 15:37, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
Yes, I understand this. But does it not still make sense that some users want to use it for more low-level tasks, like I did when I just wanted to repartition the drive?On 25/02/2025 at 14:40, Ralf Bergs wrote:I wanted to repartition (delete all existing partitions) my drive in d-i in "rescue mode".Unfortunately, d-i insisted that a root FS exists. It would be helpful if this warning could be skipped, confirming "I want to do it anyway".Rescue mode is not intended for using partman, d-i's partitioning interface. Instead it displays a screen where you can select which partition to mount and fix.
If you just need to do simple partitioning such as deleting existing partitions, you can start a shell and use fdisk or parted.Ok, *this* I was not aware of. So "partman" is not a generic "partition manager" (as I was assuming), but it is something with additional functionality included, *specifically* written "for" or "to support" d-i?In partman, "finish partitioning and write changes to disk" does not only create and format partitions (commit.d): it also checks if the setup is valid (check.d), mounts filesystems on selected mount points and writes some files such as /etc/fstab (finish.d). So check.d and finish.d would need to be skipped in rescue mode.
However a trick is to enter "Configure software RAID" (or LVM or encrypted volumes) instead; this will prompt to write pending changes on disk.Thanks. Now that you say it, I actually remember this behavior, but it's not obvious, especially for users like me who use d-i every couple of years only.
What about an explicit menu item "commit pending changes to disk"? Or would that somehow disrupt the UX?
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