Another subtle blow on Software Freedom?

[twohot]

Today, In the spirit of a Fedora Ambassador, I convinced a neighbour to 
release her HP Compaq 615 so I install Fedora 14 for her.  For 
first-timers, I usually go the dual-booting way. So, I booted it up 
using a live USB and started to check what's possible.  What do I get? 
I find a scenario similar to the one I experienced 3weeks back:

The machine came with a 320HDD fully partitioned off.


system	|	Windows		|	recovery	|	Tools
(boot)	|	(OS)		|	(installer)	|	hardware

At first, the challenges are not apparent because I'm used to these 
partition labels, but what I have discovered recently is that their 
order have changed. The Recovery, Tools, and system partitions usually 
come first before the Windows Partition.  Now, the OS is sandwiched 
in-between critical partitions effectively nullifying the creation of 
free space using partition shrinking. Anaconda cannot use free spaces on 
a drive that has all its "Standard Partitions" in use, and in the above 
scheme, Extended partitions are not possible -- not without loosing data.

I thought about moving the partitions around and then I recall that some 
vendors have their BIOS set to access the Tools and Recovery Partitions. 
I am not sure whether the vendor software expect instructions at 
specific sectors on the drive, but I suspect so. If I'm right, then this 
looks like a subtle attempt to discourage dual-booting.

On a machine that is mine, I wouldn't hesitate to backup (mirror) my 
partitions and wipe the hard-drive clean. However, this is appearing 
more on machines owned by wanna-be Linux users; people who still want a 
fall-back plan (Windows) when they get lazy to learn. These people don't 
have extra drives that can be used for drive mirroring ... they don't 
have recovery CDs (some hardware don't ship with those these days).

Has any one been through this?  How does an Ambassador deal with this?

Regards

Oku, Onyeibo
----
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/user:twohot

[Mathieu Bridon]

On Sun, 2010-12-19 at 19:09 +0100, Onyeibo Oku wrote:
[... snip ...]
>  Has any one been through this?  How does an Ambassador deal with
> this? 
By explaining the **facts** and what you believe is possible to do,
trying not to forget the drawbacks of each option.

Your job as an ambassador is to advocate objectively for Fedora and Free
software. In the end, it is the user that has to make his own choice.

That being said, I'm glad this never happened to me, I would be very
embarrassed explaining that the user might have to choose between using
Fedora and keeping on being able to use the Windows recovery installer.

Hopefully this recovery partition is useless as the person was sold the
computer with a Windows restauration CD.

Cheers,


-- 
Mathieu

[Frankie Mangoa]

hi,
there is another option.
we use partition magic withing windows to create the partition..
that is reduce the windows space.
after that install fedora.
worked for me but can not guarantee works on all machine as i did it once.

thanks.

On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 9:09 PM, Onyeibo Oku <twohot(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  Today, In the spirit of a Fedora Ambassador, I convinced a neighbour
> to
>  release her HP Compaq 615 so I install Fedora 14 for her.  For
>  first-timers, I usually go the dual-booting way. So, I booted it up
>  using a live USB and started to check what's possible.  What do I get?
>  I find a scenario similar to the one I experienced 3weeks back:
>
>  The machine came with a 320HDD fully partitioned off.
>
>
>  system  |       Windows         |       recovery        |       Tools
>  (boot)  |       (OS)            |       (installer)     |       hardware
>
>  At first, the challenges are not apparent because I'm used to these
>  partition labels, but what I have discovered recently is that their
>  order have changed. The Recovery, Tools, and system partitions usually
>  come first before the Windows Partition.  Now, the OS is sandwiched
>  in-between critical partitions effectively nullifying the creation of
>  free space using partition shrinking. Anaconda cannot use free spaces on
>  a drive that has all its "Standard Partitions" in use, and in the above
>  scheme, Extended partitions are not possible -- not without loosing data.
>
>  I thought about moving the partitions around and then I recall that some
>  vendors have their BIOS set to access the Tools and Recovery Partitions.
>  I am not sure whether the vendor software expect instructions at
>  specific sectors on the drive, but I suspect so. If I'm right, then this
>  looks like a subtle attempt to discourage dual-booting.
>
>  On a machine that is mine, I wouldn't hesitate to backup (mirror) my
>  partitions and wipe the hard-drive clean. However, this is appearing
>  more on machines owned by wanna-be Linux users; people who still want a
>  fall-back plan (Windows) when they get lazy to learn. These people don't
>  have extra drives that can be used for drive mirroring ... they don't
>  have recovery CDs (some hardware don't ship with those these days).
>
>  Has any one been through this?  How does an Ambassador deal with this?
>
>  Regards
>
>  Oku, Onyeibo
>  ----
>  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/user:twohot
>
>  --
>  ambassadors mailing list
>  ambassadors(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/ambassadors
>

[twohot]

On 01/13/2011 07:28 PM, Frankie Mangoa wrote:
>  hi,
>  there is another option.
>  we use partition magic withing windows to create the partition..
>  that is reduce the windows space.
>  after that install fedora.
>  worked for me but can not guarantee works on all machine as i did it once.
>
>  thanks. 
Anaconda wouldn't accept that in my case.  Options for resizing 
partitions abound ... Windows-7 lets you shrink its partitions (Bill's 
guys can copy too).  I often install fedora from a flash drive and I 
make sure gparted is installed for this purpose.

The problem is not in the creation of space, but in making the system 
see the extra partition -- the one created above the standard 
provisions. One can only have four(4) standard partitions OR three 
standard ones and an extended partition (that can take more logical 
drives).

These days, machines ship with all four in use.  Usually, the 
manufacturers' tools are in the first, followed by the OS ... so 
appending extended partitions were effortless.  These days, the 
manufacturers put their tools in the last partition and you can't extend 
a sandwiched partition.

If LVM drives can live in sandwiched free spaces, then that's cool but 
it didn't work in my case.

-- 
Oku Onyeibo
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/user:twohot