Quoting a discussion thread from last year which grew to 6 pages, turned ugly, and got locked:
If you start porteus the first time from a FAT-fs you get a bright-yellow-message
at bootup:
"A Windows filesystem (FAT,NTFS) or other non-posix compatible filesystem has been detected on /porteus.Your changes cannot be saved directly to the specified storage media with this setup. Please use the Porteus save file manager to create a .dat container and use it for
saving your changes after your next reboot."
The devs and longtime users have lamented GEEZ, CAN IT BE ANY MORE OBVIOUS?!?
Yes, it can, and considering the recurrence of posts by stumbling new users, it needs to be somehow even MORE obvious.
First of all, many users are going to be overwhelmed during a first-time testdrive.
Bright yellow or not, any boot message (prior to xsession) is likely to be consciously dismissed
(I'll fiddle with the technical details later, first run I just wanna see if my sound works and...)
Clicking through an "I understand" prompt, displayed conditionally if no savefile.dat is found, might jog awareness
but ideally (IMO) that point should be conveyed via a window/dialog inside the session (idunno? launch
geany /pathto/savefile_howto.txt)
As is, the message is linewrapped (impedes readability) and emphasizes via bolding,
after your next reboot.
Broadening the emphasis
for saving your changes after your next reboot would better serve as an immediate "call to action".
Ahhhhh... but this obvious, bright yellow, disclaimer is attempting to ALSO convey a separate point:
understand that your newly-created savefile isn't available/usable until you reboot
Another sticking/confusing point for the new user regarding savefile creation is:
WTF is "Porteus save file manager"? How do I find it, and once I do... whaddami s'posed to do/type/click?
Let's see: There's no desktop icon, nor rootmenu entry labeled "Porteus save file manager"...
When user eventually stumbles into finding the GUI (by clicking a tooltip-less "star" icon within control center app?)
? Am I expected to create a directory?
? Can I, should I, write to the root dir?
? Wait, whaddya mean the chosen path is inside the roofs? Aw for Pete's sake...
Seriously... the gui, the workflow, needs to be improved. Does the GUI contain an icon linking to a help document?
Empowering the user by exposing choices/flexibility is a wonderful IDEA(L)
but, in a first-run or test-drive context, consider:
-- Porteus is marketed as a Live+persistence distro
-- For nearly every other "live+persistence" distro the user has encountered,
persistence from the get-go is probably a presumed-to-be-desirable feature and has been transparently enabled, by default
-- menu offers an "Always Fresh" entry (implying 'no persistence this session') but user has NOT chosen that entry
