Rename anaconda to cryptoconda?

Eric Blake eblake at redhat.com
Mon Dec 3 23:13:17 UTC 2012


> Based on this thread and feedback from others and the forums, I've
> created a series of bugs on *specifically identified* usability
> issues,
> all with the 'tag' [custom part usability]:
> 
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883134
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883138
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883141
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883148
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=883150

Wow.  I also ran into usability problems over the weekend; my particular
use case was pre-partioning my disk into a single LVM volume group with
LUKS encryption in order to set up a multiboot environment with a shared
/home but separate / between the OSs.  I had no problems getting the F17
installer to reuse an existing lvm partition within the LUKS volume group
for '/'.  But after that install, when I switched over to the F18 Beta
installer, I could not get things to work - anaconda just crashed on me.
I finally resorted to installing another copy of F17 and using fedup to
convert it to F18.

It took me at least 15 minutes to understand enough of the F18 custom
partitioning screen to even figure out what I was doing to request mount
points for my new install; among other things, I didn't realize that
there were no other OS's shown until I decrypted the LUKS container (as
the probing of /etc/fstab couldn't proceed until it could read the lvm
partitions).  Finally, no matter what I did, even after upgrading to
the anaconda in updates-testing (18.34) rather than what shipped with
the beta (I think 18.29.2?), I still ended with anaconda crashing the
moment I tried to click the 'expand' button next to the new F18 OS
after first hitting the 'apply' button to accept my request to mount
'/' into one of the pre-existing lvm partitions.  This is the bug
report that ABRT created for me:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=882722

Another usability bug I did not see mentioned here - in the custom screen,
there is no way to have multiple OSs expanded at once.  Every time I clicked
the small '+' button next to one OS to see what partitions were still
assigned there, any other open OS was collapsed.  I wish there were a
top-level expand-all button, or at least the abilty to leave more than
one OS expanded at a time, rather than being forced to collapse one OS
when switching to view another; I have not yet filed a usability bug
for this UI aspect.

[I debated about starting a new thread, since no one else in this thread
seems to have mentioned installing into a pre-existing LUKS volume group,
but this bug summary proved too tempting to not add another bug to the
list, not to mention that the term 'cryptoconda' seems somewhat apropos
to my failed attempt to install to a pre-existing LUKS encrypted partition]

I will say that the anaconda in updates-testing was marginally better than
the one that shipped with the beta image; among other things, instead of
just showing two pieces of information per mount point (mount directory and
generic description such as 'root'), it showed three (mount directory,
generic description, and hardware name such as '/dev/sda5' or
'lv_root_fedora18' that I had already named when pre-creating the volume
group), and that made a world of difference in understanding what I was
doing, providing the confirmation I needed that I was designating the
correct portion of the disk for the proposed mount point.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake at redhat.com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org


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