Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 195454
Anaconda "new partition" dialog initial disk selection is invalid.
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:11:35 EST
Description of problem: When creating a new partition in using the Anaconda partitioning tool, the "new partition" dialog box will auto-select all the available drives, no matter which physical/logical drive has been selected by the user in the main "disk view" root window,. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): <=Fedora Core 5. How reproducible: Always. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Select a device (any device) in the main disk view root window. 2. Click on new. Actual results: The "new partition" dialog box drive selection will auto-select all the available devices. Expected results: The "new partition" dialog box should auto-select the drive selected in step 1. Additional info: N/A
Also the default when creating a partition using the buttons (not selecting a device) should not default to select any harddrive. Today it selects all harddrives and that is an impossible selection.
It's not all that obvious, but this isn't a bug. There are two different ways to create a new partition - you can click the "New" button, or you can double click a free space partition on the drive display/click and press "Edit". There is a subtle distinction here. If you just click the "New" button, you are saying you want to create a new partition. It doesn't matter what partitions are highlighted, because you want to create an entirely new one. However if you select a partition and press edit, you are saying you want to edit the selected partition. That action may involve creating a new partition in that space. This is tied in with how we represent free space internally. It's represented as a "partition", same as anything else. It just has a filesystem type of free space. So, the above described behavior makes a little more sense that way.
I don't see what that has to do with this. I'm suggesting that the new partition dialog should not select any disks by default. Today it selects all disks on the system. When I want to make say a swap partition on disk 1 and press the new partition button it will automaticly select disks 1-30 if I have that many in the system. So I'll have to deselect disks 2-30 just to create the partition. That default is not even a valid choice. This same problem occurs when you want to create a raid volume from raid partitions. It automaticly selects all say 20 free raid partitions so you will have to remove 18 checkboxes in order to only set up a single mirror on two of the partitions. Does that make it any clearer? I really hope you will consider reopening this bug.
That's a different bug from the original issue, which is what I was addressing. Perhaps I should have been clearer than that. It looks like your issue is tracked by bug 195636 which is still open.
Ah, I see. Yes they are different and I'll settle for the other one.
-If- Anaconda was the only available partitioning tool, I'd accept that fact that highlighting a certain partition does not effect the "new partition" dialog box. However, tools such as gparted/qtparted/PQMagic/etc have developed a common HIG language that people come to expect. Heck, parts of said "language" can be found in text based partitioning tools such as Debian, FreeBSD and Slackware. - Gilboa