Fedora Installation Needs Intelligence

Thursday, 11 December 2014

As an AI guy, it's been frustrating that installing Fedora on my Macbook 
has been 3 days and counting, a living hell, and still not right (still 
can't get wireless to work not having eth0 available) - I've come to 
realize the installer is "stupid" from an intelligence standpoint.  
Installing Fedora requires many decisions and tweeking from the user who 
must rely on insufficient documentation and searching user posts that 
are often outdated, do not work, and lacking key details.

Installation is often the "first impression" or "key impression" of 
Fedora.  As consultant Brian Tracy states "don't meet customer 
expectations, don't exceed customer expectations, but WOW the customer.  
It is what Apple has mostly done.   Fedora / Linux can be the best, 
should be the best - time for a "first in class" installation process.

Here's what I've found:

1) Linux actually does an extensive "pre-flight" check but this 
information is not conveyed to the user in any simple, exception 
reporting, pretty UI dashboard kind of way.

a) the first screen of F21 workstation live is simple and nice looking - 
ie does user want to run Live or install Fedora - the "pre-flight" check 
needs to be something simple and attractive as this

2) This "first screen" needs to identify the existence of key elements 
for successful installation and operation.  RAM, hard disk space, 
wireless / eth0, ......   If key requirement is missing / insufficient 
then pop suggestion - if it's a non shipping proprietary issue, then 
provide popup dialog info and links to get problem solved - none of the 
current "go look it up" - needs the right info right there - yes this 
adds lots of up-to-date work but is really important !!   ie. for 
Broadcom  - dialog should explain this is proprietary, must be added 
from outside source, do you want outside source installed ?  click 
install, BAM!, it's taken care of.
a) realize this is hard, but if done in a modular fashion, then all the 
different requirement combinations can be more easily managed - ie 
wireless check, separate popup module for each driver - many of these 
drivers seem to exist on apps.fedoraproject.org - needs to be better 
integrated

3) Some of #2) might depend on type (workstation, cloud, server) and 
possibly language, etc so there might be some iterative process needed 
for the initial 1-3 screens

4) Some info (ie setting time zone ) just does not seem critical at this 
point - push it to later - get past the critical element stage first

5) Partitioning has improved but still not good enough.  Again simple 
screen of what's there, what needs to be there, and any desired 
overrides - bouncing the user into gparted is terrible (gparted needs 
it's own intelligence...).
   a) based on existing OS - simple question of dual-booting, or replacing
   b) simple 3 col screen:
     col 1 - list of current partitions,
     col 2 list of recommended  -
     col 3 based on selected item in col 2 input boxes of each partition 
details
   c) some of above is already there (ie col 3) - just needs some UI fixing
   d) then immediately ask to apply - then BAM! partitioning is done and 
show user clearly what was done - then ask to either change partitions 
again, proceed with software install, or cancel out
   e) there seems to be real problems with current "going back" - like 
due to caching - it doesn't go back right

5) After all these critical requirements are done and installed - then 
proceed to other info such as passwords, user, time zone, software to be 
installed - make sequential simple screens with big nice UI buttons ....
a) get rid of current async around the screen paragraph buttons that is  
confusing to user
b) perhaps it seems efficient to do multitasking (ie fill out user while 
stuff is installing)  but filling out a couple of simple screens 
sequentially is a lot more efficient in terms of less confusing, 
ensuring more accurate input, etc

6 Before saying install is complete - run another "flight check" to be 
sure everything is right and installed correctly - if not, alert user 
and show recommendations .  Time to stop the install completed, reboot, 
and then no wireless, ....

7)  Give option to save successful install in a simple install config 
file for multiple similar machines

8)  team working on install needs to put together wireframe / sketches 
of screens - suggested UI needs to be posted for feedback before 
programming effort  - current installer iterations seem more trial and 
error rather than getting good user feedback right from the start

Am willing to work on this - can mock up the input screens -  just point 
the direction of how to help

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