Fog client confusion

[Tom Elliott]

Deploy:

verb (used with object)

1. Military. to spread out (troops) so as to form an extended front or line.
2. to arrange in a position of readiness, or to move strategically or appropriately:

To deploy literally means to set up a tasking. That’s it.

[Wayne Workman]

@Tom-Elliott Then “Quick deploy existing image”

[Quazz]

@Tom-Elliott I agree that at the end of the day there’s almost so much you can do and that a well documented wiki is far more important than any of this, but I see little harm in trying to minimize ambiguity.

@Junkhacker said in Fog client confusion:

@Quazz i have never heard anyone say to image a drive and mean to create an image. I’ve heard “capture an image,” “create an image,” “pull an image,” “make a backup image” but never “image the drive” the only way to completely eliminate confusion would be to make the description ridiculously verbose.

^ working off that logic, having just “Quick image” makes no sense at all.

At the end of the day I care very little about this, just playing devil’s advocate I guess.

[Tom Elliott]

Quick deploy existing image? Where is it existing from? Server, or the machine that’s trying to setup the tasking?

[Junkhacker]

@Quazz my point is that to image a drive by default means to put an existing image on the drive. any other use of the term requires qualifiers like “create an image”

[Quazz]

@Junkhacker That’s fair, but perhaps it would be useful for the long run to have consistent terminology accross all of FOG, that is to say if “Quick image” represents “Deploy image to this host” from the WebGUI ( sort of ), then that should be named something similar.

I understand where newbies’ confusion is coming from, is all.

[Tom Elliott]

To clarify in the english language would require more along the lines of:

Place existing file from FOG Server after another master system had its data copied to the server by means of placing the bits copied from the originating file onto the this system.

Like I said, I understand the confusion, but I’m not changing it. This value is already changeable. As for the init’s, making an entire build of a file simply for changing around a few words (not even spelled incorrectly) is moot to me. It can be done yes, but now that we all know what it means, we can inform others as they ask. There shouldn’t be the rant about something that literally has no impact on how a system works at all.

If you take “Image this host now” as to upload and image and ruin your “master” system, when this is already clearly documented not only in our own wiki, but other tutorials on how to properly create a master image, I’m sorry. I didn’t know we had to make the entire system self documenting, which means the point of a manual is what?

[coco65]

@Tom-Elliott Don’t get mad, I was making this remark to help future newcomers, not to troll you. I know how it works now, just trying to help in making it better, not only for the hardcore/oldschool users but for newcomers also.

Note that English is not my native language, I am not trying to be a grammar professor here. In the wiki the word image is mostly used as a thing (an image), not a process (to image).

See https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Managing_FOG#Hosts

Images
Image objects in FOG are the representation of the physical files that contain the disk or partition images that are saved on the FOG server.

See https://wiki.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php?title=Managing_FOG#General_Tasks

General Tasks
The general/common Tasks in FOG include unicast image upload, and unicast image send, as well as a multicast image send. In FOG, sending an image to the server is considered an image upload, and deploying an image to the client is called a send. Both of these tasks can be started directly from the search, list all hosts, and list all groups pages.

In the wiki the terms upload and send are used and explained, but in the web console (GUI) it’s called capture and deploy in the menu and tooltip. So the wiki and GUI and boot menu are not in sync.

From a usability perspective I would suggest that you choose 2 words (like capture and deploy) and then use the same terms in the wiki, the UI and the client boot menu. One line of text describing if it goes from client to server or from server to client, would not hurt. When you are standing before a client, that just PXE booted, the wiki is not at hand.

[Wayne Workman]

@coco65 Well said.

[coco65]

@MRCUR

I have to disagree with this. When you use “image” as a verb, it implies that you are downloading the image to the computer.

In the past I have tried and/or worked with (but i prefer Fog over them):

• Symantec Ghost Solution Suite
• Acronis Snap Deploy
• Clonezilla
• Trinity Rescue Kit
• CloneDeploy
• WDS: Windows Deployment Services

In those systems “making an image” or imaging means copying all the data from a (client) hard disk to a file (on a server or somewhere). Bringing the data back to a client system is called deploy, send, push, download or restore. I do not care how it is called in Fog, just keep it the same in the console, the boot menu and the wiki. Capture/Deploy works fine for me.

[Wayne Workman]

Also, @Tom-Elliott there are several Web Interface errors that still use the upload/download terminology I’ve realized. For example, “You must first upload an image to create a download task”.

[Tom Elliott]

All changes are now made.

[Tom Elliott]

Understand, this “rant” is not about a particular person or thing.

Yes, I agree text should be common. The only reason Deploy/Download Capture/Upload were used interchangeably around the place is because a while back somebody said Upload and Download made no sense, that it would be clearer to use Deploy/Capture. So I made the change(s) after a very similar discussion here.

So all of my posts regarding this (while admittedly a bit on the “heated” side) are not about how simple (or not) it is to change the text so a single user (Yes I know it can help many more) can understand it, but rather about something called “precedent”.

Because I made this change the first time around, it set the precedent that I would make the change ANY time somebody makes a suggestion. I agree the descriptions should’ve been updated and for that I’m sorry, but those changes would not have had to have been made if we left the original labels as Upload/Download. Making the change to the Quick Image and init’s would’ve likely been more understandable under that light.

That all said, I’ve made ALL of the requested changes. Registration will now ask:
Would you like to deploy image to this computer now?
Rather than:
Would you like to image this computer now?

Boot menu is labeled as:
fog.deployimage with description Deploy Image
Rather than:
fog.quickimage with description Quick Image

All references to upload as it pertains to images/imaging has been replaced with capture.

All references to download as it pertains to images/imaging has been replaced with deploy.

[coco65]

@Tom-Elliott Wow great. Fog really works for me, and for many others I can imagine, just trying to help to make it better as much I can. Thank you.

[Wayne Workman]

I spent over two hours last night changing the various wording for “Upload” to “Capture” in the wiki wherever possible (except in error messages, variable names, and various code).

I’ll work on “Download” sometime soon.

[Tom Elliott]

For future people.

I realize this posting is a bad example of things. But it must be noted. All I personally care about with fog is that the main elements operate.

E.g. Capturing/Deploying images is working, (not the text behind it), the server is sending and working properly with the FOG Client (both legacy and new), and the like. Text that has NO impact on these elements don’t matter to me. What was coded there before I even started developing for this project is likely what was/is used.

Now that FOG is on GIT, it doesn’t have to me ONLY me making changes. If I disagree with changing the text, it’s not likely anything I’m going to disregard if a pull request is made for it. This is what really got me. I don’t care what the text is, and why – especially if there’s real issues to take care – do I have to be the one to make these changes?