Installer: Add clean install / archive and clean install option

[rossi]

It would be very nice and convenient if installer would contain two additional options:

1) Clean Install

This option should remove all Haiku system files present except user data (i.e. /boot/home) and super sugar would be an additional checkmark to also remove the user config directory to prevent malfunctions from stale config files.

2) Archive and Clean Install

Same as above, except that everything is archived first, either in a real archive or for speed reasons just moved to a restore folder whatever.

[stippi]

In hrev31042, I implemented that /system is always a clean copy.

[idefix]

According to the notice, Installer will merge all folders (except system) and when a conflict occurs it will overwrite the files on the target volume with the files on the source volume.
While this is fine for most folders, I would prefer it wouldn't do that for the home folder.

[stippi]

For the CD installation, this wouldn't be a problem, since the home folder on the CD doesn't contain much anyways. But when installing from another source, I agree it could be a problem. Maybe we should simply have this as an option. In any case, the Installer is really just copying things. It's easy enough to boot into Live-CD mode and copy any folders one needs, or leave out folders one doesn't need. And the Installer can still be used to make something bootable and nothing else. In the future, I also want to make it easy to reach Bootman from the Installer as well.

[korli]

This ticket doesn't seem valid anymore, should we close?

[waddlesplash]

Yes, I agree.

[axeld]

Why woulnd't it be valid anymore? The problem persists, and has actually gotten a real problem, as it is now much harder to copy the files manually (due to PM). I think adding an option to preserve the home folder is even more valid as it ever was.

[taos]

I think the default is now to always preserve the home folder. No matter whether you update via pkgman or if you use Installer. At least I don't remember having lost my Vision settings file in the last 1.5 years (neither on my pkgman managed nightly installation nor in my self-built Installer updated installation, and AKAIK there actually is a default settings file in the Vision package that only gets written to disk if there is none). I had more of a problem with stale config files once in a while that don't get updated. Another inconvenience - if you go the Installer route - is that all packages in /system/packages are removed and you have to install every single additional package again (e.g. the wifi-firmware package you would need to have installed before you could go online to download said package...).

[waddlesplash]

@axel, as @taos said, I'm pretty sure "home" is copied (from what I've seen...)

@taos: Wifi-Firmwares may be an exception on purpose, as we aren't legally allowed to distribute the files in HPKG form.

[taos]

Replying to waddlesplash:

@taos: Wifi-Firmwares may be an exception on purpose, as we aren't legally allowed to distribute the files in HPKG form.

It's not only wifi-firmwares, it's everything that is not part of the default image from which you install with Installer. I must have installed some of the sdl packages almost 100 times. Wifi-firmwares is just the one that can give you real trouble if you don't have a wired network connection. As long as there is a working internet connection, of course, it's no problem to download missing packages. And that's maybe the point: use pkgman to upgrade and keep all installed applications, libraries, etc, use Installer if you want to "refresh" your system because something has seriously gone wrong that you cannot solve otherwise - but in both cases your home folder will be kept (including a copy of wifi-firmwares).

BTW, I think for writable (settings) files included in packages an option is available in the recipes to either overwrite an existing file or keep the old one ("keep-old").

[pulkomandy]

Why do we still support installing over an existing system at all? Now that we have pkgman update, there is no need for this anymore.

In the current Installer, the home dir is "merged", that is, old files are preserved, but overwritten by files from the partition you install from. This is possibly useful to repair an install where you have some corrupt setting files. Since this is now a repair operation, not the usual "update" one, maybe we can make the warning a bit louder and the feature less easy to trigger by accident?