Disk Druid - Fedora flame #1

[Jeff Vian]

On Mon, 2005-01-24 at 07:51 -0700, James Mckenzie wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Timothy Murphy <tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie>
> Sent: Jan 24, 2005 6:28 AM
> To: fedora-list at redhat.com
> Subject: Re: Disk Druid - Fedora flame #1
> 
> Colin Charles wrote:
> 
> >>> Why has the choice of fdisk disappeared?
> >> 
> >> Because it scares users away. And on ppc, we need to show pdisk maybe
> >
> >I've never seen any evidence that anyone has ever been "scared" by fdisk.
> >When it was offered, it was described as "for expert users only",
> >so it seems very unlikely anyone of a nervous disposition would try it.
> That is very true, but some folks need a guiding hand when installing ANY operating system.  
> >
> >In any case, I do not understand why fdisk is considered so dangerous.
> Have you ever had to rebuild a hard drive because a user decided to run fdisk and then "save" their efforts?  It is not pretty when you have to tell them that they just lost over ninety days worth of work.  Yes, I have and at the time I could run very fast (the person threatened bodily harm and blamed me for their mistake.)  The default at most places is to remove the fdisk (and any other disk functionality to include defragmentation software) because most users of computers do not understand the results of their actions.  This is what makes fdisk an extremely dangerous command.
> 
> I come from before the days of MS-DOS and am very knowledgeable of what I am doing.  However, some folks have problems finding and properly utilizing the power switch on their computers.  So, for those folks, we have Disk Druid.  For those of us that understand the 'power' of fdisk, it is still there and we can still use it.
> 
> >As far as I can see, it does exactly what it says
> >(which is more than can be said for Disk Druid,
> >which does what it wants).
> >The only problem I can see that could arise with fdisk
> >would be if you deleted a partition by mistake,
> >but that seems to me quite difficult to do.
> 
> You have a few days you are not doing anything with?  Try this on a disk that you have data on that you don't care about (and this is what the user did in the story above).  Start fdisk on a running system, delete any random partition (try root just for fun).  Create TWO new partitions out of the old partition.  Write the partition table.  Run your system for a while.  Shut down and reboot.   Don't be surprised that your system cannot boot.  Call in IT maintenance and NOT tell them what you did because you can be fired for an unauthorized system modification.  After IT maintenance tries for a while to figure out what you did, blame them for breaking your system.  
> 
> >Note that I am not asking for Disk Druid to be removed.
> >I am simply asking for fdisk to be restored as a choice
> >(with the warning that it is only for experts, if you like).
> 
> This will not stop the ID10Ts from trying to set up their 'better' solutions.  However, for those of us that know better a special keystroke would be much better.  
> 
> >I want to choose how my disk is partitioned,
> >and in my experience Disk Druid does not allow me to do this.
> 
> I've run Disk Druid and setup my own drives and had no problems.  I even decided to setup a LVM with it.  
> 
> For the ID10Ts out there, DD is a workable solution.  For those of us that know what we are doing and are willing ot accept the results if we mess up. FDISK should be there for us.  However, we have to figure out a method that keeps the ID10Ts from making our lives miserable.  And, yes, some of those folks live in the higher levels of management.
> 
> 

I disagree.  DD is really no more workable than fdisk (it is gui and has
more features), and those id10t users who will do what you described
with fdisk would do the same with DD. The real advantage of DD over
fdisk is the gui and multiple functions in addition to the partitioning
part of its task.

In the scenario you described, _whatever_ tool was available for doing
the task the user tried would have been used. Fdisk may have been the
one he was familiar with but parted, qtparted, and others are available
if installed. It has long been known that "security by obscurity" never
works. The luser who thinks he knows more than the administrator can
always find a chink to chip away at.

Also, AFAIK fdisk has always been in /sbin, and has always required root
privileges to run.  If your systems had fdisk in a different location or
allowed different privledges they were not set up like any I have seen.
OTOH, if fdisk was given to users by sudo or the user was given root
privileges then that was an administrative problem.

The features of SELinux have lots of promise, but are not totally bug
free yet. 

> 
> James McKenzie
> A Proud User of Linux!
>