Gnost is a portable app. You install and run it from the drive/partition where the image files are located. So when using a USB hard drive, the program comes along as you move to different machines. If you boot a target Windows machine off a Puppy CD, you don't need to install Gnost - it's already there on the USB drive.
Gnost only works with files in the current directory. Backup image files are too important to get lost or mixed up. You need to know exactly where your files are. That's why you ONLY run Gnost from within the destination directory by clicking on the Gnost program icon. Running Gnost from /opt/gnost3 or from the Puppy menu would create an image file INSIDE your Puppy save file/folder. You don't want to put a multi-GB file there by accident.
So why doesn't Gnost have a file chooser button like other programs? Because after using Gnost for many years, I have concluded that the current method works best. It also adapts nicely to running backups via remote Samba shares.
Regarding Pudd: Pudd doesn't care about the filesystem type of the partition you are backing up. It just uses the dd command to copy everything in the partition, including the unassigned areas that contain no data. That's why it takes hours to back up a modern hard drive.
But Gnost only backs up the areas of the partition that are actually in use. It uses tools that are specific to the filesytem type - NTFS partitions are processed differently from ext partitions. So it's important that both you and the program are aware of the filesytem type in play - hence the radio buttons in the second box. This is crucial if you ever need to restore the image. The target partition MUST match the filesystem type of the original.
I agree that the label on the second box is vague. So I am posting a new version 3.1 that makes this more clear. See the new screenie. Thank you for pointing this out.
However, it seems to me that anyone performing image backups should already have a reasonable idea of what partition types they are dealing with. Just doing a mouseover of the drive icons at the bottom of the screen provides good information. Or you can run Partview from the system tray.
Regarding the List button: because Gnost does not have a file chooser mechanism, I wanted an easy way to select an image file without having to type in the name. Instead, you can copy/paste a filename from the List screen. Some users will complain about this because it's not the conventional method of selecting a file.
I would never have released Gnost if I didn't have confidence in its ability to perform a restore. I have successfully restored images many times. Gnost uses the same tools as well-known apps like Clonezilla. But no operation working at the hardware level can be guaranteed.But how good are they to restore things? I don't want to mess with my computer and test the restoring functions.
@nilsonmorales: I have changed the two messages at the top of the screen, so they will need re-translating. Sorry about that.
Bill