more newbie-friendly dual-boot instructions?

[Matthew Miller]

I came across this question on Ask Fedora:

https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/problems-making-dual-boot-fedora-w10/10766

where the person is having trouble getting Fedora Workstation set up for a
dual-boot-with-windows-10 environment.

There's a paradox or irony here: this is one of the most complicated things
we might ask completely new users to do, yet also, new users just dipping
their toes are probably most likely to want the comfort of being able to
boot back to their old OS.

Do we have better hand-holding instructions for doing this somewhere that I
could point this user to and which we could make more prominent?

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Ramya Parimi]

This is almost perfect for my situation! But I have been trying to dual
boot on my Mac with no luck. It would be great if I can get any pointers to
that as well, if any 😊

Thanks
Ramya

On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 4:37 PM Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
wrote:

>  I came across this question on Ask Fedora:
>
>  https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/problems-making-dual-boot-fedora-w10/10766
>
>  where the person is having trouble getting Fedora Workstation set up for a
>  dual-boot-with-windows-10 environment.
>
>  There's a paradox or irony here: this is one of the most complicated things
>  we might ask completely new users to do, yet also, new users just dipping
>  their toes are probably most likely to want the comfort of being able to
>  boot back to their old OS.
>
>  Do we have better hand-holding instructions for doing this somewhere that I
>  could point this user to and which we could make more prominent?
>
>  --
>  Matthew Miller
>  <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
>  Fedora Project Leader
>  _______________________________________________
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Thank you
Ramya Parimi

[Máirín Duffy]

Wouldn't such a user be better advised to run Fedora in a VM?

On December 4, 2020 5:37:35 PM EST, Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
wrote:
> I came across this question on Ask Fedora:
>
> https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/problems-making-dual-boot-fedora-w10/10766
>
> where the person is having trouble getting Fedora Workstation set up
> for a
> dual-boot-with-windows-10 environment.
>
> There's a paradox or irony here: this is one of the most complicated
> things
> we might ask completely new users to do, yet also, new users just
> dipping
> their toes are probably most likely to want the comfort of being able
> to
> boot back to their old OS.
>
> Do we have better hand-holding instructions for doing this somewhere
> that I
> could point this user to and which we could make more prominent?
>
> -- 
> Matthew Miller
> <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
> Fedora Project Leader
> _______________________________________________
> desktop mailing list -- desktop(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to desktop-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
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[Matthew Miller]

On Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 08:32:13PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
>  Wouldn't such a user be better advised to run Fedora in a VM?
Maybe? Depends how much they're trying to shift, I guess. Like, if they're
going to keep Windows for games, it probably doesn't matter that graphics
might not perform as well inside a VM. But if they're trying to see if they
could live entirely in a Fedora world, dual booting gives a better test.

I like the suggestion for making this the primary recommendation, though.
Something like:

   It's easiest to install Fedora Workstation (or another Fedora spin) as
   the only operating system on your hard drive, completely replacing
   Windows. However, if you're not quite ready for that kind of commitment,
   you have two alternatives.

   The first is to install Fedora Workstation into a virtual machine in
   Windows. With this approach, your existing operating system is unchanged,
   and the Fedora OS runs in a protected environment "inside" it. There are
   a number of programs which provide virtualization, including Hyper-V on
   Windows Pro and VirtualBox (a free and open source cross-platform
   solution). We have instructions for the following virtualization
   environments:

   * Hyper-V (recommended where available)
   * VirtualBox (recommended)
   * VMWare Workstation Pro
   
   Installing in a VM is easy, but an operating system running that way does
   not have full access to your hardware, and you may not get the same level
   of performance. For this reason, many users choose to dual boot — that
   is, they divide their hard drive into different parts, devoting some to
   Windows and some to Fedora Workstation. Doing this requires you to have
   some basic knowledge of disk partitioning concepts and of boot loaders.
   Don't worry: we'll try to make it as easy as possible with the following
   guides:

   * Disk partitioning concepts for dual booters
   * UEFI boot concepts for dual booters
   * Step-by-step guide for installing Fedora Workstation to dual boot with
     Microsoft Windows
   





-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Máirín Duffy]

I would strongly recommend running any official recommendations by the Anaconda team... I
know when I worked more closely with them, they preferred very strongly to not recommend
multiboot nevermind to newbies. At that time, VM or live media were their recommends for
this use case.

And honestly if they want a bare metal test, a newbie really would be best served with a
live USB wouldn't they? If they decide its not right for them they can pull it out.
And no mucking with partitioning. And VM is best for the ultimate lazy just want to try it
with no effort case.

I mean for newbies if they have to learn the intricacies of partitioning with the penalty
of losing their running windows system that's really quite a high punishment for
learning smtg quite difficult. A very bad foot to start them off on esp if we want to
expand our reach to a broader more inclusive audience. Honestly I grew up partitioning
using fdisk on the cmdline back in the day and I can't even do it without a great deal
of trepidation when real valuable data is on the line. Safely and easily doing that with
Windows is very hard to achieve and maintain. I think the best solution would remove the
requirement for users to learn abt partitioning and reserve that brain space for learning
about Fedora itself and how awesome it is.

I dont know the state of persistent live installs these days - I know it previously has
been pretty shaky. If it's better now, then if we could set them up with that it'd
be ideal. Maybe we could recommend some nice USB flash drive HW for the task as well.

~m
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[Matthew Miller]

On Sun, Dec 06, 2020 at 01:17:31PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
>  I dont know the state of persistent live installs these days - I know
> it
>  previously has been pretty shaky. If it's better now, then if we could set
>  them up with that it'd be ideal. Maybe we could recommend some nice USB
>  flash drive HW for the task as well. 
It's the same is it was, so, yeah, that's my trepidation with that
recommendation.

On the other hand, my hesitation with telling people "dual boot is hard" is
that, like in the referenced Ask question, people are being told by other
distros "setting up dual boot is easy and the best way to get started."

So, if we say "actually, don't dual boot, here's a whole 'nuther thing
which
may require you to install extra software trust us it'll be even easier", a
lot of people are just going to say "never mind, Fedora is making things
complicated again", which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place.


-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Amitosh Swain]

On Sun, 6 Dec 2020 at 23:59, Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  On the other hand, my hesitation with telling people "dual boot is hard" is
>  that, like in the referenced Ask question, people are being told by other
>  distros "setting up dual boot is easy and the best way to get started." 
I second this. Other distros actuall advertise dual booting and
include automatic tools in their installer to resize a partition and
setup the installation.

>  So, if we say "actually, don't dual boot, here's a whole 'nuther thing
> which
>  may require you to install extra software trust us it'll be even easier", a
>  lot of people are just going to say "never mind, Fedora is making things
>  complicated again", which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place.
>
>  
This is from by days in uni when I use to actively evangelise Fedora
to fellow students. Most newbies look for easy to use guide for dual
booting. The docs on docs.fp.o are too detailed to the point where
people have found it completely confusing.

So I used to have a PPT that showed how to dual-boot Fedora, I can
share if anyone is interested. It worked for most Windows laptops with
EFI.

On the other hand, we need proper sections linking to either using
Fedora as a virtual machine or dual booting on getfedora.org, right
after a user downloads.

--
Amitosh

[Máirín Duffy]

So by newbie, you don't mean newbie, you mean
has-a-luxury-of-time-to-learn-from-scratch-how-to-partition-hard-drives-and-aware-of-other-distros-and-their-recommended-procedures-and-knows-what-a-distro-is-in-the-first-place?

By newbie I was thinking rather than shuffling the deck chairs on the S.S.
Already-Uses-Loonix *and* was born before 1995, actually getting a fresh population to try
hopping aboard! Ahoy!

If they can buy a USB stick at a local drugstore, stick it in, download an exe file and
install and run it, it's already asking a lot I think of the specific audience I was
eyeing (bored and quarantined remote learning students who own one computer and can't
F it up or they can't go to school.) 

VM would probably be better and lower risk except that gets dicey cuz you dont know what
VM software they're using.

Anyway, my misunderstanding! 😜 Although please please consult the installed team before
making any multiboot recommendations in an official capacity!

I hear you on the not wanting to make things complicated which is why I am suggested dual
boot should be out of the equation.

~m
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

[mowestusa]

I know that I have not made many contributions, but as a Fedora user, and someone who
loves to encourage others to try Linux, I really believe Matthew Miller has exposed a
possible way that Fedora could gain a "win" with a segment of new users.
Personally, I have avoided dual booting because of the complexities and possible things
that could go wrong. As a result, I have often been running Linux on older
"hand-me-down" hardware, because my newer hardware is often used to run Windows
for work related programs. If Fedora could come up with a reliable and safe set of
instructions and tools for dual booting it would give Fedora a "win" with
another new group of possible users. I don't know if I have the hardware or
understanding to help out with the documentation and testing, but I love the idea. Any
"win" with a possible new group of users, who might be Linux curious, but
limited on their hardware options, could help to expand the great community that we find
in Fedora already.

---------------------------- 
| Steve | mowestusa(a)yahoo.com | ---------------------------- 

    On Sunday, December 6, 2020, 5:27:20 PM EST, Máirín Duffy
<duffy(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:  
 
 So by newbie, you don't mean newbie, you mean
has-a-luxury-of-time-to-learn-from-scratch-how-to-partition-hard-drives-and-aware-of-other-distros-and-their-recommended-procedures-and-knows-what-a-distro-is-in-the-first-place?

By newbie I was thinking rather than shuffling the deck chairs on the S.S.
Already-Uses-Loonix *and* was born before 1995, actually getting a fresh population to try
hopping aboard! Ahoy!

If they can buy a USB stick at a local drugstore, stick it in, download an exe file and
install and run it, it's already asking a lot I think of the specific audience I was
eyeing (bored and quarantined remote learning students who own one computer and can't
F it up or they can't go to school.) 

VM would probably be better and lower risk except that gets dicey cuz you dont know what
VM software they're using.

Anyway, my misunderstanding! 😜 Although please please consult the installed team before
making any multiboot recommendations in an official capacity!

I hear you on the not wanting to make things complicated which is why I am suggested dual
boot should be out of the equation.

~m
-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my
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[Matthew Miller]

On Sun, Dec 06, 2020 at 05:26:26PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
>  So by newbie, you don't mean newbie, you mean
>  has-a-luxury-of-time-to-learn-from-scratch-how-to-partition-hard-drives-
>  and-aware-of-other-distros-and-their-recommended-procedures-and-knows-
>  what-a-distro-is-in-the-first-place? 
I'm not sure if this directed to me is to me or what, but: usually people
who become aware of Fedora are already aware of Linux generally, and maybe
familiar with a certain other option with a larger user community. They
learn pretty quickly that "pick a distro" is a first step. They read
articles like this one:

 
https://www.techrepublic.com/google-amp/article/linux-the-7-best-distribu...

... which says:

   "Fedora 33 is that Linux distribution that welcomes new users, but also
    gives them plenty of room to grow and learn. If a user wants to use the
    desktop and never venture beyond simplicity, Fedora can do that. For
    those users who eventually get bored and want to explore a bit more,
    Fedora can do that as well."

... which is awesome, but then that user runs up against the difficulty that
is installing, and yeah, unless they're ready to devote a whole machine,
partitioning is going to be staring them in the face pretty soon.

>  By newbie I was thinking rather than shuffling the deck chairs on the
> S.S.
>  Already-Uses-Loonix *and* was born before 1995, actually getting a fresh
>  population to try hopping aboard! Ahoy! 
Sure! That's included in the above as well.

>  If they can buy a USB stick at a local drugstore, stick it in,
> download an
>  exe file and install and run it, it's already asking a lot I think of the
>  specific audience I was eyeing (bored and quarantined remote learning
>  students who own one computer and can't F it up or they can't go to
>  school.) 
Right, "going to a drugstore" is a lot right now. :)

>  VM would probably be better and lower risk except that gets dicey cuz
> you
>  dont know what VM software they're using. 
I agree with both of these. It's just not easy either way.


-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Máirín Duffy]

On 12/7/20 11:18 AM, Matthew Miller wrote:
>    
> https://www.techrepublic.com/google-amp/article/linux-the-7-best-distribu...
>
>  ... which says:
>
>      "Fedora 33 is that Linux distribution that welcomes new users, but also
>       gives them plenty of room to grow and learn. If a user wants to use the
>       desktop and never venture beyond simplicity, Fedora can do that. For
>       those users who eventually get bored and want to explore a bit more,
>       Fedora can do that as well."
>
>  ... which is awesome, but then that user runs up against the difficulty that
>  is installing, and yeah, unless they're ready to devote a whole machine,
>  partitioning is going to be staring them in the face pretty soon. 
So who does this
^ article mean when they say "new users" - because if 
installation is the big hurdle (and it's not just for Fedora), why is 
there no mention of installing how to / partitioning how to in this article?

If I google (well, duckduckgo) for "how to try linux" I get this up top:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2018/09/18/how-to-safely-try-...

It suggests using liveUSB.

Next item down, 
https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/how-install-and-try-linux-absolu...

This gives instructions to order Xubuntu preinstalled on a 32gb usb stick

Next one down: 
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2918397/how-to-get-started-with-linux-a-b...

These instructions walk through how to pick a distro, install it to USB 
or DVD (either live or as an external USB drive install), and how to 
install to VM.

Next down: 
https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/easy-ways-for-windows-use...

VirtualBox, Windows built in Linux subsystem, USB flash drive are the 3 
easy ways.

Last one I'll mention: 
https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/try-ubuntu-before-you-install#1-getting-started

Walks through doing a live USB or DVD install.

None of these hits for "how to try linux" mention partitioning a hard 
drive or dual boot. It's just not an option apparently that tech 
journalists who authored these top hits decided to cover.

I think it would really help to be much clearer about what is meant by 
"new user" or "newbie" here. This is not a Fedora-specific problem, 
every distro has this problem. If "newbie" means "new to Fedora, not 
necessarily Linux" then we are no different than any other distro. If 
"newbie" means "new to Linux, thinking about trying Fedora" then maybe

we should look at the distros that type of newbie is going for and look 
at how they are handling that path. Maybe mentioning the Lenovo 
pre-installs somewhere on our website would be nice for that audience? 
But the majority of folks, regardless of distro, have this hurdle and I 
don't see dual boot coming up when I search for guides aimed at what I 
think is the correct audience here so I don't understand why that's what 
we're looking to as the solution?

~m

[Matthew Miller]

On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 01:24:22PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
>  So who does this ^ article mean when they say "new users" -
> because
>  if installation is the big hurdle (and it's not just for Fedora),
>  why is there no mention of installing how to / partitioning how to
>  in this article? 
Well, I guess I'm coming at this from the other direction. I see
non-theoretical new Fedora users hitting a problem.

>  nice for that audience? But the majority of folks, regardless of
>  distro, have this hurdle and I don't see dual boot coming up when I
>  search for guides aimed at what I think is the correct audience here
>  so I don't understand why that's what we're looking to as the
>  solution? 
Maybe you're right and we're not actually worse than other distros in this
area. I still see it as something we can improve. We could try to do some
more research on the users who are coming in organically like the ones I'm
seeing, or we could try to develop guides for different personas.



-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Máirín Duffy]

On 12/7/20 1:47 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
>  On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 01:24:22PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> > So who does this ^ article mean when they say "new users" - because
> > if installation is the big hurdle (and it's not just for Fedora),
> > why is there no mention of installing how to / partitioning how to
> > in this article?
>  Well, I guess I'm coming at this from the other direction. I see
>  non-theoretical new Fedora users hitting a problem. 
I get that, but
"dual-boot" is a solution, not a problem. (Well, it's a 
problem when you accidentally wipe out your ability to boot Windows or 
worse lol, but generally it's not the problem-to-solve here.)

Like, if you step back and view "dual-boot" as a solution, what problem 
could it possibly be solving? Some ideas:

1. I only own one computer and I want to run more than one OS. Is this 
really a problem? Does someone who owns one computer not have access to 
flash drives, external HDDs, or (completely free and functional) VM 
software? Especially considering the latter, absolutely not, they do 
have access to VM software. So let's go another step, why would a VM not 
solve the problem?

2. I only own one computer, I want to run more than one OS, and both 
OSes *must* be baremetal. OK. I need help with the latter half. I could 
see, some kind of hand-wavy "I'm a gamer and my graphics hardware / 
gamery stuff only works best baremetal" but I could not see that for the 
Linux side, only the Windows side, meaning, put a Linux VM on your 
Windows OS, there's no problem. So is there a problem that demands a 
solution that must OSes be baremetal because if it exists I don't know 
what it is nor how common it is?

3. I own a few computers, but I am a tech journalist and I need to 
install multiple distros in a multiboot situation so I can review them. 
I also kind of don't understand how VM doesn't solve this case. It's a 
case that was brought up the last time we had a grand multi-boot 
discussion (in the context of installer UX.)

So I don't actually understand the problem dual-boot really solves 
exclusive to other potential solutions here, and I am totally open to 
not knowing / understanding it or missing it so let me know if I am 
missing it.

Anyway, to reframe things towards the problem instead of the solution 
first:

The problem here is enabling folks to try Fedora without blowing away 
another OS, isn't it? Dual-boot is  a pretty poor solution to this if 
you care about the other OS and are not experienced with partitioning 
(it is also a poor experience if you *are* experienced with partitioning.)


I suspect the right / best solution is to evaluate where our livemedia 
story is, upgrade the bits that need upgrading to make it robust (as I 
think Neal mentioned elsewhere in the thread), and make the try story as 
easy as, "stick a usb flash drive of (>= whatever size) into your 
computer and run this app", and the baremetal install story have an 
actual narrative / plan of sorts that can be filled in with details as 
the user prefers. But just a sketch of an outline.

So for example, if ACT I of the story starts out, "Hey, I use Windows 
and I heard about this Linux thing and I want to try it":

Pre-req: Admin to install app on Windows system, USB stick (>= $size) 
that can be wiped

STEP 1: Download $liveusbcreator for Windows _here_ and install on your 
system.
STEP 2: Stick USB stick in your system and install Fedora to it using 
$liveusbcreator.
STEP 3: Try Fedora out for a little bit, noting you'll lose data on boot 
unless you save it to cloud drives (which you can hook up using GOA for 
example.) (unless we fix persistent partitions of course)

Then Act II, which is what you seem most concerned about is, "Hey, I 
tried Fedora out and I think I'm ready to take the next step and make it 
my main thing."

The parts of the narrative that need to be defined here:
- Am I keeping my Windows system intact and have (or plan to have) 
access to another system (another laptop, workstation, raspberry pi, 
whatever) to run Fedora exclusively on?
- Do I have the ability to get a new fresh hard drive and install it 
into the chassis of my system or plug in externally and install to that?
- Am I OK backing my data up / ghosting my Windows harddisk maybe, and 
wiping the system from fresh to install Fedora?
- Do I need to work with a single hard drive / multiboot situation?

The best experience is always installing on a fresh, unencumbered disk, 
isn't it? It's also the easiest for the end user in terms of minimizing 
stress, mental load, risk. So if we could lay out a plan for them based 
on their tolerance for the top 3 options above -

- Use Windows 10 System Image to make a copy of the windows system: 
https://www.windowscentral.com/how-make-full-backup-windows-10
- Securely back up the system image to a cloud service
- Installing Fedora to drive wiping the Windows install
- Installing the windows image to a VM in Fedora
- Wiping Fedora and reinstalling Windows from the image baremetal

Kind of to give them ideas on the different strategies they could follow 
with some instructions or pointers on how to do each, so they even know 
what is possible, and giving some guidance as to what we recommend for 
the best experience / best support. I think multi-boot would fall pretty 
low on that list. It's fragile I think for a lot of reasons in a lot of 
ways.
>  Maybe you're right and we're not actually worse than other
> distros in this
>  area. I still see it as something we can improve. We could try to do some
>  more research on the users who are coming in organically like the ones I'm
>  seeing, or we could try to develop guides for different personas. 
I would like to know where the idea for dual boot came from. It's a 
common thing right for someone to come in asking for help doing a 
$solution and you have to get everyone to step back to define the 
$problem first, then direct towards the right $solution. If that makes 
sense.

Also sorry for the WALLSOFTEXT on all of this, it's just something I've 
thought a lot about in the past from all of the installer UX work I've 
been involved with and I gathered a lot of info / data on it already.

~m

[Matthew Miller]

On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 02:18:43PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
>  I get that, but "dual-boot" is a solution, not a problem.
> (Well,
>  it's a problem when you accidentally wipe out your ability to boot
>  Windows or worse lol, but generally it's not the problem-to-solve
>  here.) 
Ha! That's true. However, it's also the solution people are coming in with.
So there's a built-in extra "expense" in telling them "well, actually,
do a
different thing". It doesn't mean we can't, it's just an additional
hurdle.


>  1. I only own one computer and I want to run more than one OS. Is
>  this really a problem? Does someone who owns one computer not have
>  access to flash drives, external HDDs, or (completely free and
>  functional) VM software? Especially considering the latter,
>  absolutely not, they do have access to VM software. So let's go
>  another step, why would a VM not solve the problem? 
Flash drives aren't a great experience because they're slow (and cheap ones
not really robust for constant live use even if we make that work better).
External hard drives are a pain with a laptop. Plus installing on a second
device still requires _some_ dual-boot understanding.

So, VMs. There the problem is that AIUI, only Windows Pro has built-in
virtualization tools. As far as I know, VirtualBox is the only free and open
source option. (Maybe even the only free-as-in-cost option too. I don't
think VMWare is in this market anymore.) But, here's the hard part: if I had
to pick which is harder for a non-techny person to pick up, _other than_ "a
mistake can destroy all of your data", I would say VirtualBox is actually
harder.

But that's a pretty big "other than", of course.


>  2. I only own one computer, I want to run more than one OS, and both
>  OSes *must* be baremetal. OK. I need help with the latter half. I
>  could see, some kind of hand-wavy "I'm a gamer and my graphics
>  hardware / gamery stuff only works best baremetal" but I could not
>  see that for the Linux side, only the Windows side, meaning, put a
>  Linux VM on your Windows OS, there's no problem. So is there a
>  problem that demands a solution that must OSes be baremetal because
>  if it exists I don't know what it is nor how common it is? 
Well, on the gamer side, someone might be testing to see if Linux is
adequade to ditch Windows for gaming entirely. Another GPU-related usecase
might be Cuda/GPGPU programming.

I've got a not-quite-fleshed out thought here too which I'll try to
articulate... a VM is perfectly fine for kicking the tires, and good for two
other big use cases: running some specific application that isn't
available natively (I used to run Quicken in a VM, for example), or to
provide a development environment. It's not typical to make your daily
environment (Qubes users aside!) be the "inside" machine. So it's my
unsubstantiated feeling that someone who has Fedora Workstation in a VM is
less likely to become a more heavy user than someone who has it on metal.

That's possibly something we could research, actually. Maybe I'm all wrong
— or maybe the increased ease / decreased risk would make it accessible to
so many more users that it's still a net win (assuming we could overcome
VirtualBox-difficulty issues).

>  3. I own a few computers, but I am a tech journalist and I need to
>  install multiple distros in a multiboot situation so I can review
>  them. I also kind of don't understand how VM doesn't solve this
>  case. It's a case that was brought up the last time we had a grand
>  multi-boot discussion (in the context of installer UX.) 
Journalists like to talk about performance, and for that, they want bare
metal. Honestly though, I'm not super concerned about this case. Those
journalists can either figure it out, or dedicate a machine, or just do
several full reinstalls.


>  I suspect the right / best solution is to evaluate where our
>  livemedia story is, upgrade the bits that need upgrading to make it
>  robust (as I think Neal mentioned elsewhere in the thread), and make
>  the try story as easy as, "stick a usb flash drive of (>= whatever
>  size) into your computer and run this app", and the baremetal
>  install story have an actual narrative / plan of sorts that can be
>  filled in with details as the user prefers. But just a sketch of an
>  outline. 
If we want to go the USB flash drive route, in addition to software
improvements, we'll need to make it clear that the minimum for a good
experience is a higher-quality USB 3 drive (in a USB 3 port).

[...]
>  The best experience is always installing on a fresh, unencumbered
>  disk, isn't it? It's also the easiest for the end user in terms of
>  minimizing stress, mental load, risk. So if we could lay out a plan
>  for them based on their tolerance for the top 3 options above - 
Yes, absolutely.

[...]
>  I would like to know where the idea for dual boot came from. It's
> a
>  common thing right for someone to come in asking for help doing a
>  $solution and you have to get everyone to step back to define the
>  $problem first, then direct towards the right $solution. If that
>  makes sense. 
Yeah, wherever it came from, it's an endemic meme at this point. :-/


>  Also sorry for the WALLSOFTEXT on all of this, it's just
> something
>  I've thought a lot about in the past from all of the installer UX
>  work I've been involved with and I gathered a lot of info / data on
>  it already. 

No apology needed! I appreciate the thoughts.

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org&gt;
Fedora Project Leader

[Chris Murphy]

On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 11:17 AM Máirín Duffy <duffy(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:

>  I dont know the state of persistent live installs these days - I know
> it previously has been pretty shaky. If it's better now, then if we could set them up
> with that it'd be ideal. Maybe we could recommend some nice USB flash drive HW for the
> task as well. 
It's unchanged. There is no GUI tool.


-- 
Chris Murphy

[Chris Murphy]

On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 11:17 AM Máirín Duffy <duffy(a)fedoraproject.org&gt; wrote:
>  I would strongly recommend running any official recommendations by the Anaconda team... I
> know when I worked more closely with them, they preferred very strongly to not recommend
> multiboot nevermind to newbies. 
Yep, it's a good point. I'm reminded they'd prefer to remove this
functionality from the automatic path.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Anaconda_Reclaim_Disk_Space

That change ran up against the unpopular fact that using Custom UI is
much more complicated to do the same task. The change was withdrawn.
But nevertheless, the trial balloon has been raised.

Also, the installer doesn't resize LVM, nor Btrfs, nor macOS's APFS.
It shrinks only NTFS and ext4 on plain partitions. That means there's
already something of an inconsistency in the UX, and the
documentation. The user needs to know what they're starting out with,
to learn whether or not the Fedora installer is really a "one stop
shop" that can do the installation. Or if they need to use some other
tool first.

On recent Macs with T2 security chips acting as the controller for the
NVMe drive, and Secure Boot, and sip - dual boot really has become a
pain.


--
Chris Murphy