Re: [Tails-ux] New Greeter: read-only persistence?

intrigeri:
> Thoughts, feelings, opinions?

Sorry for the delay!

My gut feeling was that we could remove it and focus on issues that are
affecting better identified scenarios and more users.

Still, I did some stats on the WhisperBack reports received in 2016:

515 had persistence read-write (98%)
11 had persistence read-only ( 2%)
857 had no persistence

4 reports were from m...@r...:

- a0e7629b892236bfc0e07feafaa78211_-_2016-08-20_1756.asc
Explaining that she uses read-only persistence because some months
ago she lost some text in Writer with a read-write persistence and is
now scared about loosing text again.

Later on in the thread she reaches the conclusion that she probably
had a faulty SD card or messed up with her setup.

- 1518328556a7d2ae059327d7dc168c4c_-_2016-08-20_1823.asc
Asking for how to download files from the Unsafe Browser.

- 8496e75d58d87aeb165c6da9607e5a42_-_2016-08-20_1830.asc
Reporting that Icedove does not work with accents in passwords.

I wouldn't be surprised if Icedove behaved in a weird way when it's
file system is read-only. The user stopped answering the thread and
didn't lead the ticket to resolution.

- b25ef0f1966d689be776707676f1978b_-_2016-08-20_1807.asc
Reporting that the upgrade check files with read-only persistence.
I couldn't find an answer from help desk.

2 reports were from l...@y...:

- 74c7c757a98619acb087fd1166cb6299_-_2016-01-13_1524.asc
Reporting an error while upgrading to 2.0 RC1

- bee48a231db757dd227fc65f235a8f61_-_2016-02-13_1555.asc
Reporting about failed upgrade checks.
Unclear if it was related to read-only persistence.

And the 5 other reports:

- 2627ef58e07c8eacbb72712169491ddd_-_2016-11-25_1238.asc
Someone reporting a bug with the Places menu when in read-only.

- 45198ebbf40252424053e17e52a867a7_-_2016-05-31_0847.asc
Someone asking about how to save the timezone.

- 6ccf89b9a2fedcce0f6395ccc6dfeda_-_2016-05-22_0113.asc
Someone reporting that KeePassX is not read by Orca.

- 9fdb35786b54572887b2698bc05801a5_-_2016-11-23_0304.asc
Someone reporting about the absence of on-screen keyboard in Greeter.

- f94fb83dd61f7f191b4d0b4995327c82_-_2016-03-25_0621.asc
Reporting problems with super custom persistence: ~/.config, ~/.cache.

So from these 11 reports, 4 were from someone using read-only when she
really shouldn't (m...@r...), 3 were about stuff that otherwise work
well with read-write persistence (74c7c75, bee48a2, 2627ef5), 1 was from
someone who's trying hard to shoot herself in the foot (f94fb83).

We're left with 3 reports that would otherwise come from people who
might have a good reason to be in read-only and are not complaining
about its malfunctioning. I didn't take the time to sanitize as well the
number of reports from people with read-write persistence, so we cannot
compare this number of 3 with anything else to judge the portion of
users relying on read-only for good reasons. But seeing that:

- The most vocal user was actually using read-only while she actually
shouldn't have and ran into other problems as a consequence.
- The absolute number of 3 is extremely small.
- We don't have solid user scenarios ourselves to defend this feature.

I'm also in favor of removing it for the time being.