[SOLVED] Question about installer

[nccpgmr9]

when doing a clean install, after formating the root partition the installer checks to see what packages are installed. WHY??
the installer should know that root was just formatted and nothing exists in that partition, it should skip this part and continue with the install.

[nccpgmr9]

no one can answer my question as to Why the installer checks for packages installed after root was formatted instead of skipping that part

[wobo]

Obviously this is a question which can be answered by anybody else than the developers of the installer. And, honestly speaking, I never asked this question myself because to me it is nothing I would spend time on.

<non-technical>
The installer is divided in several sections which build on the results of the previous section. The partitioning section of the installer tells the package selection section the target for installation taken from the result of the partitioning (like "install the system on /dev/sda5 which is 12Gb in size"), otherwise the package selection section would not know the size of "/". So why could it not add another information about the target like "clean - not_clean" which would cause the installer to bypass the searching task or not bypass it.
</non-technical>

Of course I have no clue about how hard it is to implement nor how to do it. Nor do I have any clue why it has not been done so.

[nccpgmr9]

yea i was just curious on why it was done that way, NO insult to the developers

[doktor5000]

Probably just a safety measure to ensure there are no packages already installed,
which could have happened after you format the /-partition (if you switch to another terminal
and install some packages manually, for whatever reason)

[nccpgmr9]

sounds good to me

[wobo]

Yes. There are so many unforeseeable ways that it is always good to take the longer but safer way. As I said, a reasonable break in the procedure does not matter much.