On Feb 23, 2015 1:26 PM, "Chris Murphy" <lists@colorremedies.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 11:23 PM, Ralf Corsepius <rc040203@freenet.de> wrote:
> > In my experience, anaconda is the #1 point, many people (ordinary users and
> > power users) are complaining about when getting in contact with Fedora and
> > is the #1 reason why they are shying away from installing Fedora (When
> > talking to non-Fedora users, the first question very often is "Is the
> > installer still the crap it used to be?".)
>
> This is what happens when the installer offers a gigantic smörgåsbord
> before a total rewrite: everyone is used to their specialty dish in
> the buffet and will get totally pissed off when their stinky dish no
> one else will touch isn't offered in the revamp. Unsurprising.
>
> The ordinary user use case should be bullet proof. I argued
> strenuously for Manual Partitioning features to work or be stripped
> from the UI. I think it's bad for GUIs to offer broken things, because
> it makes them untrustworthy, and we can't have that.
>
> I think that's been proven to be correct, even though hindsight is
> 20/20 too, the reality is too much was bitten off, much more than
> could be chewed, and more than Anaconda had help with from these power
> users who wanted all of these (highly questionable) use cases
> supported as if it's easy.
>
> Guy: CHEF! Make me Peking Duck to go, you have 5 minutes!
>
> Chef: Umm, well I can't make Peking Duck in 5 minutes, it takes an hour.
>
> Guy: Idiot!
>
> It's really just noise. In many ways I think the power user was
> excessively coddled during the rewrite. The scope should have been
> significantly narrowed, the main uses cases made bullet proof and then
> refined, before any Manual Partitioning should even have been
> included. I filed over 100 bugs on newUI a lot of which had to do with
> Manual Partitioning and quite honestly I wish I could get that time
> back.
>
>
> > To "newbies" the GUI is "cryptical" and "non-selfexplatory", while to
> > "power-users" the GUI doesn't provide the features catering their demands
> > and clumsy to use.
>
> Ok well, unless the power users are filing coherent bugs and/or
> contributing code, their demands are edge cases that probably
> shouldn't be supported.
>
> The newbies always have legitimate complaints. They're completely
> innocent in all of this, and that's where I'd have put resources.
>
> And in terms of prioritizing, I think i18n needed more resources,
> accessibility needs more resources, and I'm sure we can find some
> other enhancements to the installer well before more Manual
> Partitioning enhancements happen.
>
>
> Me:
> >> That's a difficult problem to solve,
> >> the result is the user still thinks they're supposed to be able to
> >> manipulate partitions.
> >
> > IMO, this is a distorted view. People want to understand what the installer
> > does and to have control over it. The current GUI does not do so and instead
> > applies some magic which people have learnt does not do what they want.
>
> People who aren't filing bugs, who aren't contributing code, want
> what? If the use case is viable, and helps a large percent of users,
> then I think this could be done. But please feel free to be specific,
> rather than generally casting the installer with a broad brush that
> suggests the GUI doesn't at all do what anyone wants ever.
>
> --
> Chris Murphy
> --

Well said.  Any use case with a sole justification of "because that's the way I like it" has questionable merit.  I don't think it came up in this thread, but I've seen partition ordering cited in this context as well:  user wants /boot on sda1, / on sda2, /home on sda3, /opt on sda5, /usr/local on /sda6, and so on.  In most of those cases, there wasn't a technical reason for this or some automated code with partition expectations - just arbitrary preference. 

Changing every possible option away from the default does not make you a power user.  The lack of options for choices with zero or less technical merit does not diminish your skills.  Roughly 149 out of every 100 people that would choose to take Hienz's "no extended partition" option would regret it, and often not understand the implications even after the negative impact was felt. 

If you're doing the math in your head, figure in about a third of people choosing the same unsuitable option again because that's what they want, then another third of that group do it again because that's what they want and nevermind the warnings,  and another third of *that* group because the system should do what *I want*, not what *it* thinks is possible. With each iteration people give up on the installer and distribution because they were able to to configure the installation the way they wanted, but didn't end up with the configuration they *needed*.  That's a lot of dissatisfaction to risk when deciding how to devote coding time.  

So really, if this stuff bothers you,  sit down, come up with a rational justification for the feature  you want, and send it in.  Most developers in this space do listen, but the normal rules of polite human interaction and rational discourse do apply. "Because that's that I want" isn't a good way to ask for someone else's time.

--Pete