Dear Installer-Maintainers,
I wanted to install debian on a machine that had cryptsetup & lvm
already configured. The graphical debian installer was so misleading that the
header of my cryptsetup partition was rewritten, causing data loss of
the entire cryptsetup volume.
Before going into details I have the following requests:
1) Be honest with the user: in the "Manually setup the partitions"
dialog, place a message: »If you want to use a cryptsetup volume
that exists already, switch to the tty and setup everything really
manualy«
2) Speak clearly to the user: before writing any changes to a partition,
show a message: »Do you really want to continue? All previous data on
partition sdXY will be lost!«
What I did
----------
In the following I'll provide a step by step instruction with
screenshots and a gif of all the screenshots.
Before the installer, I had a cryptsetup with lvm on sda2. Then I booted
the debian graphical installer. In the Partitioning dialog I've selected
"Manual setup" (18*.png) and for the partition sda2 I've selected "Use
as: phys. vol. for encryption" (22*.png) and "Erase data: no" (23*.png).
The next logical step was to "Configure encrypted volumes" (25*.png).
And of course I was fine with the partitioning scheme from the
beginning, so I confirmed the dialog that I don't want to apply further
changes (26*.png). Now I'm asked for a passphrase and without any
confirmation dialog (recall point 2 above) the partition header is
rewritting, and I'm send back to the main screen (34*.png).
The above description is just an example how to screw up an existing
partiton.
All the screenshots and the installer log are attached.
Please add the above confirmation messages 1 and 2, it will reduce
frustration for users.
Best,
Thorsten