Backup mechanism?

[mairin]

(From Garrett's comments in anaconda-redesign-2015_round2.svg)

Would it be possible — or even make sense — to have a backup mechanism here? (Just speculating…) I'd guess people using existing operating systems would probably not have backed up before getting to this step, and losing data is an awful thing. Ideally, there shouldn't be any problem (but I always hear about how resizing is risky, but have never experienced problems myself).

However, a drawback with backing up data is how to handle it. There's a lot of hidden UI with that. This is probably best left to a backup utility in the Live image, or a tool inside the preinstalled OS.

[garrett]

After suffering through two New 3DS system set ups and transfers (one failed, but still worked, and the other was successful — but the system it transferred to was defective, as we found out later, causing a completely irrecoverable cascade failure, which may even result in non-working hardware and all data loss), I'm firmly back on the side that it would be nice to try to help with backups if possible.

[garrett]

One possibility — which could also help with the installer — is to not have Anaconda run in the Live desktop mode.

Basically, much like selecting the recovery mode, there would be a special way to boot the disc into installation mode. It could even possibly be implemented with user switching so that it'd be faster (and better than — especially when special packages, sometimes even including binary blobs for networking, video, etc.) rebooting.

The idea is that Anaconda would be in a pristine environment (so things done in the desktop wouldn't cause it to get unstable or pull out the rug from under it).

There would still be an option to install in the live desktop, but it'd kick over to the special mode... and the installer would probably have a special utility mode that could be activated from the first page and an impossible-to-install screen (one of which is mocked up) which would restart into a special utility mode with backup, gparted, and other tools available (along with an install link too).