Bugzilla – Bug 141219
Repair and rescue options are hidden in the wrong place on the installation media
Last modified: 2009-09-28 11:07:58 UTC
If you have to use the installation media for rescue purposes (e.g. to reinstall the boot loader), it is very difficult to find the correct location of this option, because at the moment this is hidden in the "other" branch of the "installation" option. Nobody would start to look in the installation part of the DVD/CD, if he doesn't want to reinstall, but to repair his system. So my suggestion is, that "repair and rescue" should be an option available already on the start page of the installation media next to "boot from hard disk" and "installation". After choosing this option all possibilities needed to make a corrupted system working again must be offered.
From a support point of perspective I can confirm that many customers are confused about the difference between the "boot from hard disk" (boot loader menu) and "boot installed system" (from inside the installation system) options. Quite often we ask a customer to use the "boot installed system" from within the installation system and they still end up using the "boot from hard disk" option ... I second that it would make it a lot easier for our customers if both the repair mode as well as the "boot installed system (woth kernel from installation media)" option would be availble in the initial boot loader menu (booting of installation media)
Reorganization of usability-bug assignments. We try to discharge the number of our bug entries in the next weeks. => Reassigned to efuchs
From a usability perspective I agree to comment #1. In my opensuse 10.2 I found the "Rescue System" option.
please send me a screenshot, I can't see in my system
Yes, in the boot there is a "Rescue System" option, but this only gives you a very basic command line system from where is very difficult to fix anything if you don't have experience with Linux. If you select "Installation" you will end selecting the language in YaST, accepting the license, and then the are three options: "New Installation", "Update", and "Other Options", these "Other Options" are the ones usefull. Even if you are a guru you will prefer to use these tools than the "Rescue System" if you just need to reload the boot loader. These "Other Options" are the ones that should be in the boot menu. Don't remove the "Rescue System", it is a good last option, but the "Other Options" should not be so hidden neither.
Is there any activity on this issue? A newbie, when s/he reads "rescue system" when booting from the installation-DVD clearly thinks that that entry is the way to get to the "repair tools" since rescue and repair are almost the same thing in that context. Hence I would second comment #5 and suggest to add an item to the DVD's GRUB bootloader: "repair tools" and because "rescue system" sounds too similar and is for advanced users only anyway, rename it to "rescue console". The latter will still mediate what it is to the advanced user and scare away newbies. :)
Another suggestion for renaming "rescue system" would be "rescue prompt".
*** Bug 273104 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
It appears to me that this has improved in 11.1, can you please review and close or act ? This is 18 month old...
Product is 10.2 I'll close this bug. Feel free to reopen if the problem is still visible.