On 29/04/12 18:55, Barry Drake wrote:
I've spent quite a bit of time on Ubuntu Help today as the questions
were overwhelming the regular folk so I took a few on board. There are
a vast number of folk who have virtually trashed their system by trying
to do an upgrade. This is exactly the problem I had when upgrading my
netbook, so I did a clean install. But I'm fairly paranoid about
backups so this was easy. Can we press for much bigger warnings in
future telling folk that if they go any further with the upgrade, they
risk losing everything? The live-CD gives a low key warning of sorts,
but the updater just gets on with it and thus trashes stuff. I think
the word 'sorry' has got into more of my replies today than ever before.
Regards, Barry.
Bad news Barry, thank you.
I believe that a clear, offered option of some sort of backup as part
of a preliminary to install or to version upgrade is an important
missing feature. My guess is that few if any devs get vulnerable to
the sort of issues a non techie Windows user faces. Most novices
respond to a backup question with a blank look.
Use of a CD to install is probably daunting enough to warn off the
less confident users, but the online upgrade is SO beguiling, and is
also very assertively advertised, that vulnerable novices can make
significant mistakes or worse. I know that one vulnerable guy I helped
did a version upgrade by mistake when all he thought he doing was a
regular update. It had unfortunate consequences, it was going from
Kubuntu (kde2) to Kubuntu (kde3) and the gui shock he experienced -
with me not being present to help or explain - was enough to keep him
away from K/Ubuntu and he quietly then stayed on Windows from then
onwards.
As Ubuntu rolls out to a greatly expanded user base, I believe it is
important to show a more prudent face about version upgrades - and
installs.
In a related experience, I am still aware that a while back, the Wubi
based Ubuntu systems were occasionally vulnerable to some grub updates
(grub2 maybe? less so for grub 1), for some reason, I am not sure
what. But a non booting Wubi system is not something I would want a
novice to risk, and afaik, wubi is *aimed* at novices. I sometimes
check what the latest information is about this weakness, and I think
it still exists. Unfortunately, I know people who have chosen to use a
wubi install, and treat it as if it is enduring, not a temporary easy
trial. I do hope they have a backup.
--
alan cocks
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