I see the partitioning interface still hasn't improved in f20. You still simply must go on faith that you might be allowed to make the changes you want sometime after you press a button labeled "Done".
I've been installing several different distros in virtual machines recently, for an example of a near perfect interface I'd point you to opensuse (I don't really like opensuse much, but the partitioning interface is close to flawless).
Instead of relying on faith, it shows you exactly what it would do in a summary at the top of the screen and has checkboxes for the most common things you'd want to change (separate /home or not, etc). As you click the checkboxes, you see exactly what the partitioning will look like in the summary at the top. No faith required.
On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Tom Horsley horsley1953@gmail.com wrote:
Instead of relying on faith, it shows you exactly what it would do in a summary at the top of the screen and has checkboxes for the most common things you'd want to change (separate /home or not, etc). As you click the checkboxes, you see exactly what the partitioning will look like in the summary at the top. No faith required.
+1
I hear you, and I agree. Yet I don't know if things will get rational anytime soon. I still remember your rant one year ago, and agree with it wholeheartedly...
Anaconda "should be renamed cryptoconda" - "the result of a group of maniacs giving each other feedback" ;)
FC
On 12/20/2013 09:19 AM, Tom Horsley wrote:
I see the partitioning interface still hasn't improved in f20. You still simply must go on faith that you might be allowed to make the changes you want sometime after you press a button labeled "Done".
I've been installing several different distros in virtual machines recently, for an example of a near perfect interface I'd point you to opensuse (I don't really like opensuse much, but the partitioning interface is close to flawless).
Instead of relying on faith, it shows you exactly what it would do in a summary at the top of the screen and has checkboxes for the most common things you'd want to change (separate /home or not, etc). As you click the checkboxes, you see exactly what the partitioning will look like in the summary at the top. No faith required.
Sounds close to what I have enjoyed on Centos. As I allocate the disk, I have this nice graphic that shows me the progress. Even shows the allocations inside of an LVM. Or at least the last time I did a Centos install.
On Fri, 20 Dec 2013 12:37:28 -0200 Fernando Cassia fcassia@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Tom Horsley horsley1953@gmail.com wrote:
Instead of relying on faith, it shows you exactly what it would do in a summary at the top of the screen and has checkboxes for the most common things you'd want to change (separate /home or not, etc). As you click the checkboxes, you see exactly what the partitioning will look like in the summary at the top. No faith required.
+1
I hear you, and I agree. Yet I don't know if things will get rational anytime soon. I still remember your rant one year ago, and agree with it wholeheartedly...
Anaconda "should be renamed cryptoconda" - "the result of a group of maniacs giving each other feedback" ;)
I agree with the sentiments, and I think that the developers can not see the issues here from an ordinary users perspective, so familiar they are with what to do with regard to partitioning. At the same time, I feel that developers -- and especially in the OSS world -- want their product to be used with ease with more people (that is after all one of their major rewards) so they would likely be open to changes.
Perhaps, the original poster can consider requesting an enhancement (RFE) on BZ explaining his views cogently (as he has done here) or on the devel mailing list (ML) because we are also very often told here that developers do not hang out much on this ML.
Best wishes, Ranjan
On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Ranjan Maitra < maitra.mbox.ignored@inbox.com> wrote:
Perhaps, the original poster can consider requesting an enhancement (RFE) on BZ explaining his views cogently (as he has done here) or on the devel mailing list (ML) because we are also very often told here that developers do not hang out much on this ML.
I had a lot of trouble with partitioning when installing F19 back when it came out, but once I solved it I couldn't remember all the fine detail of what was wrong with the interface, except that it was deeply unintuitive and required me to close my eyes and press OK while hoping it would do the right thing. Since most of us only do this once every 6 months or so, I'm probably not alone in being unable to give a coherent report to BZ. Maybe that's why it never improves.
poc
On 12/20/2013 09:19 AM, Tom Horsley wrote:
I see the partitioning interface still hasn't improved in f20. You still simply must go on faith that you might be allowed to make the changes you want sometime after you press a button labeled "Done".
I installed a larger [650 gig] disk to get away from the 80 gig drive I was using for F-19 and if I understand what I see the installer has squeezed everything into less than 60? I will have to fix that now. I wondered about it when doing the install but saw no way to edit things and figured they probably knew better than I did and it would become part of the LVM, it doesn't look that way to me. And I thought I finally knew how to run the installer ...
Gparted shows 507.17 GiB as not mounted.
So much for my "faith."
Bob
On 12/20/2013 10:09 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Ranjan Maitra <maitra.mbox.ignored@inbox.com mailto:maitra.mbox.ignored@inbox.com> wrote:
Perhaps, the original poster can consider requesting an enhancement (RFE) on BZ explaining his views cogently (as he has done here) or on the devel mailing list (ML) because we are also very often told here that developers do not hang out much on this ML.I had a lot of trouble with partitioning when installing F19 back when it came out, but once I solved it I couldn't remember all the fine detail of what was wrong with the interface, except that it was deeply unintuitive and required me to close my eyes and press OK while hoping it would do the right thing. Since most of us only do this once every 6 months or so, I'm probably not alone in being unable to give a coherent report to BZ. Maybe that's why it never improves.
Things really changed from f17. And did not change so much. What it took to get into cusomizing the partitioning was really well hidden. Once I got there, it was the same thing (well a few addtions) of keeping my old partitions, telling disk druid what diretory to use (like it has the old ones and can't suggest them?) and click on reformating. So I don't have to go through all the pain I had initially figuring out a partitioning scheme.
On Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:09:15 +0000 Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Ranjan Maitra < maitra.mbox.ignored@inbox.com> wrote:
Perhaps, the original poster can consider requesting an enhancement (RFE) on BZ explaining his views cogently (as he has done here) or on the devel mailing list (ML) because we are also very often told here that developers do not hang out much on this ML.
I had a lot of trouble with partitioning when installing F19 back when it came out, but once I solved it I couldn't remember all the fine detail of what was wrong with the interface, except that it was deeply unintuitive and required me to close my eyes and press OK while hoping it would do the right thing. Since most of us only do this once every 6 months or so, I'm probably not alone in being unable to give a coherent report to BZ. Maybe that's why it never improves.
Agreed, but now that the points are fresh in your mind, and so is a good time to try and inform the developers in a cogent manner.
Best wishes, Ranjan
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On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 3:20 PM, Ranjan Maitra < maitra.mbox.ignored@inbox.com> wrote:
I had a lot of trouble with partitioning when installing F19 back when it came out, but once I solved it I couldn't remember all the fine detail of what was wrong with the interface, except that it was deeply unintuitive and required me to close my eyes and press OK while hoping it would do
the
right thing. Since most of us only do this once every 6 months or so, I'm probably not alone in being unable to give a coherent report to BZ. Maybe that's why it never improves.
Agreed, but now that the points are fresh in your mind, and so is a good time to try and inform the developers in a cogent manner.
You misunderstood me (or I wasn't clear enough). I was talking about F19 and 6 months ago. I haven't installed F20 yet so I don't know what will happen. When I do I'll try and make notes in case the same issues crop up again, in which case I could conceivably report them to BZ.
poc
On Fri, 20 Dec 2013 15:26:11 +0000 Patrick O'Callaghan pocallaghan@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 3:20 PM, Ranjan Maitra < maitra.mbox.ignored@inbox.com> wrote:
I had a lot of trouble with partitioning when installing F19 back when it came out, but once I solved it I couldn't remember all the fine detail of what was wrong with the interface, except that it was deeply unintuitive and required me to close my eyes and press OK while hoping it would do
the
right thing. Since most of us only do this once every 6 months or so, I'm probably not alone in being unable to give a coherent report to BZ. Maybe that's why it never improves.
Agreed, but now that the points are fresh in your mind, and so is a good time to try and inform the developers in a cogent manner.
You misunderstood me (or I wasn't clear enough). I was talking about F19 and 6 months ago. I haven't installed F20 yet so I don't know what will happen. When I do I'll try and make notes in case the same issues crop up again, in which case I could conceivably report them to BZ.
Thanks! Sorry for my misunderstanding.
Best wishes, Ranjan
On Dec 20, 2013, at 7:19 AM, Tom Horsley horsley1953@gmail.com wrote:
I see the partitioning interface still hasn't improved in f20. You still simply must go on faith that you might be allowed to make the changes you want sometime after you press a button labeled "Done".
I forget the rationalization for Done coming after the choice of device to install to. Clearly we aren't done with the installation destination spoke, which includes all of guided and custom partitioning paths. The Done button has been a thorn in my side UI wise since inception but all I ever got was ridiculously bad examples of how such upper left UI is used in other programs, which don't also split their navigation UI, or clutter the upper left with other text or UI elements. But it's really an ordinary example of bad UI, i.e. it's not especially bad.
I've been installing several different distros in virtual machines recently, for an example of a near perfect interface I'd point you to opensuse (I don't really like opensuse much, but the partitioning interface is close to flawless).
Short learning curve, but overly complicated Btrfs layout with a large pile of subvolumes. Maybe other layouts are similar I'm not sure.
This is necessarily a challenge for any really capable installer. Does opensuse's installer let you create bootable raid 0, 1, 10, 5 and 6? Does it do bootable LVM on raid? Or bootable LVM on raid on LUKS? Anaconda does. It's massively complex.
The Guided partition path alone, with a simple unidirectional (no reversal) test matrix of not fewer than 80 tests. And a bulk of those are repeated for every test compose and release candidate. It's a lot of testing and is maybe 1% of what the installer can do. Custom partitioning is so massively complex that I don't think it should be in the installer at all. Windows and OS X installers are brain dead simple because they have essentially no options at all. The volume is supposed to be preformatted and empty, you point the installer to it and it installs. Windows does have a rudimentary partitioning tool integrated in their installer, and a way to reformat partitions. OS X doesn't, you have to use a separate tool, including preparation of bootable RAID1 setups.
I think it's challenging to imagine how custom partitioning gets much better when it creates complex storage layouts for installation of an OS only, rather than general purpose create and modify. And also it's also effectively only an RHEL/Fedora tool.
Instead of relying on faith, it shows you exactly what it would do in a summary at the top of the screen and has checkboxes for the most common things you'd want to change (separate /home or not, etc). As you click the checkboxes, you see exactly what the partitioning will look like in the summary at the top. No faith required.
The idea in anaconda's custom partitioning is that you're directly modifying what you're calling the summary in opensuse. The things you create in anaconda's custom partitioner aren't even partitions, they're mount points. So "Manual Partitioning" is actually weirdly named. You first specify mount points, and then how they get created rather than the reverse. A big part of the challenge is that most people who use custom partitioners don't think in terms of top level mount points until they've built what they want from the ground up. Anaconda is top down to the degree that the lowest part of the stack, the physical block device, is quite a hidden feature and isn't intended the user needs to choose which physical devices the parts appear on.
Chris Murphy
The unfortunate fact in all of this is that the old GUI for the old anaconda was just fine and exactly what you would expect. I find it particularly galling that a new partition can no longer "fill all available space" (as used to be avalable) for instance and we have to type some value in the hope that it will be accepted (it is not always). As an example, I had 14 GB left for my root and no matter what number I typed, the partitioning took it to be set at 10GB. Not clear where this came from. The partitioning itself continues to be counterintuitive: you select a disk to install in, and then click done after which the option of doing a custom partition may show up. I can go on and on: the old anaconda interface was so much better and (in summary so much) faster!
Ranjan
On Sat, 21 Dec 2013 13:27:43 -0700 Chris Murphy lists@colorremedies.com wrote:
On Dec 20, 2013, at 7:19 AM, Tom Horsley horsley1953@gmail.com wrote:
I see the partitioning interface still hasn't improved in f20. You still simply must go on faith that you might be allowed to make the changes you want sometime after you press a button labeled "Done".
I forget the rationalization for Done coming after the choice of device to install to. Clearly we aren't done with the installation destination spoke, which includes all of guided and custom partitioning paths. The Done button has been a thorn in my side UI wise since inception but all I ever got was ridiculously bad examples of how such upper left UI is used in other programs, which don't also split their navigation UI, or clutter the upper left with other text or UI elements. But it's really an ordinary example of bad UI, i.e. it's not especially bad.
I've been installing several different distros in virtual machines recently, for an example of a near perfect interface I'd point you to opensuse (I don't really like opensuse much, but the partitioning interface is close to flawless).
Short learning curve, but overly complicated Btrfs layout with a large pile of subvolumes. Maybe other layouts are similar I'm not sure.
This is necessarily a challenge for any really capable installer. Does opensuse's installer let you create bootable raid 0, 1, 10, 5 and 6? Does it do bootable LVM on raid? Or bootable LVM on raid on LUKS? Anaconda does. It's massively complex.
The Guided partition path alone, with a simple unidirectional (no reversal) test matrix of not fewer than 80 tests. And a bulk of those are repeated for every test compose and release candidate. It's a lot of testing and is maybe 1% of what the installer can do. Custom partitioning is so massively complex that I don't think it should be in the installer at all. Windows and OS X installers are brain dead simple because they have essentially no options at all. The volume is supposed to be preformatted and empty, you point the installer to it and it installs. Windows does have a rudimentary partitioning tool integrated in their installer, and a way to reformat partitions. OS X doesn't, you have to use a separate tool, including preparation of bootable RAID1 setups.
I think it's challenging to imagine how custom partitioning gets much better when it creates complex storage layouts for installation of an OS only, rather than general purpose create and modify. And also it's also effectively only an RHEL/Fedora tool.
Instead of relying on faith, it shows you exactly what it would do in a summary at the top of the screen and has checkboxes for the most common things you'd want to change (separate /home or not, etc). As you click the checkboxes, you see exactly what the partitioning will look like in the summary at the top. No faith required.
The idea in anaconda's custom partitioning is that you're directly modifying what you're calling the summary in opensuse. The things you create in anaconda's custom partitioner aren't even partitions, they're mount points. So "Manual Partitioning" is actually weirdly named. You first specify mount points, and then how they get created rather than the reverse. A big part of the challenge is that most people who use custom partitioners don't think in terms of top level mount points until they've built what they want from the ground up. Anaconda is top down to the degree that the lowest part of the stack, the physical block device, is quite a hidden feature and isn't intended the user needs to choose which physical devices the parts appear on.
Chris Murphy
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On Dec 21, 2013, at 1:53 PM, Ranjan Maitra maitra.mbox.ignored@inbox.com wrote:
The unfortunate fact in all of this is that the old GUI for the old anaconda was just fine and exactly what you would expect. I find it particularly galling that a new partition can no longer "fill all available space"
If this is the last mount point you create, it's made as large as possible by not entering in a size value. Or you can enter a value greater than the value reported as "Available Space" in the magenta box, lower left corner.
(as used to be avalable) for instance and we have to type some value in the hope that it will be accepted (it is not always). As an example, I had 14 GB left for my root and no matter what number I typed, the partitioning took it to be set at 10GB.
Probably because it wasn't a contiguous 14GB. I've not recently (since F18) seen it fail to allocate what you ask for, if it's contiguously available. The "available space" amount shows all unallocated space, including non-contiguous space. So it's possible for that value to be greater than the largest possible size for a regular partition.
That's why for standard partitions, "fill all available space" is a misleading choice and it's best it's gone. Hypothetically, non-contiguous portions could each be made PVs, added to a VG, and then you could make an LV of any size up to the maximum truly available since LVM can use non-continguous extents since it presents them as contiguous to the file system. But in practice, the installer won't actually create such a layout, and that's probably a good idea also because even though it can be done, it's complicated and thwarts the allocation mechanism of the file system, better to just fix the problematic existing layout.
Chris Murphy
On 12/21/2013 12:27 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
The Done button has been a thorn in my side UI wise since inception but all I ever got was ridiculously bad examples of how such upper left UI is used in other programs, which don't also split their navigation UI, or clutter the upper left with other text or UI elements. But it's really an ordinary example of bad UI, i.e. it's not especially bad.
Herd mentality. Everybody else does it that way, so we have to follow them, never asking if it's right or not.
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