Anaconda wishlist

[Eric Griffith]

+1 ACK

*Timezone always seemed very odd to me because it's always gotten it
right and NTP defaults to 'on' anyway... Also yes, it's redundant with
gnome-initial-setup.

*We have "Pretty Names" thanks to systemd, we might as well use them.
Also, yes, the entire 'network configuration' page needs to either be
removed or modified because right now its a giant waste of white space
(more on that later...)

*Root password + User got brought up in a different thread, one of the
Workstation guys said that long run they wanted to make it more
obvious that it was an Either/Or (You can either set root, OR make a
user), you didn't have to do both. If we're going to be removing the
root prompt then I think a few 'bugs' need to be ironed out.

The one that comes to mind is... if you're an "Administrator" then you
have the ability to use grub2-mkconfig but... you have to blindly
specify an output file on an EFI system. On my system only root can
look inside /boot/EFI/ (not modify mind you, just LOOK) which means if
i'm under my user account and decide to change a grub parameter I have
to either blindly remember what the path is, or take the time to swap
to root and then swap back just for the sake of updating the boot
config.

I get that the boot config isn't something that you want just any user
with sudo messing around with, but at the same time... if they got
sudo they can already just rm -rf /etc and /usr anyway, plus some
consistency would be nice.


*If user account creation gets removed then gnome-initial-setup needs
to trigger under KDE, XFCE, and LXDE spins as well, or they need to
get appropriate first-time-setup utilities as well.

*I already said I thought hub-and-spoke was a bad idea. Installer
starts --> Keyboard and Language selection ---> Disk partitioning -->
User Creation ---> Done. Keep an expert button for software selection
and non-default network config if we really want to keep those in. The
installer is the one point of contact that EVERYONE experiences and
everyone should experience it for the LEAST amount of time possible,
and that means it needs to get out of your way and have the bare
minimum necessary to get a system running.

*Additionally, does the installer really need to be fullscreen /
maximized? There's tons of wasted whitespace all around and if hub and
spoke gets removed then there will be even more waste because we won't
have the spoke page filled up with topics. Just make it a 'normal'
application.

Disk layout needs some work, seriously. It might have been a bug but
when I installed it on my laptop i couldn't get it to automatically
create btrfs partitions + encrypted volumes. I spent an easy
30minutes+ fighting with Anaconda and at the end of it I threw in the
towel and just opted for ext4 + encryption because thats what I could
get it to show me... in the end what I was told I was gonna get (ext4
+ encrypted, possibly LVM in there too) and what I GOT (btrfs +
encrypted... which is what I wanted anyway, but the installer told me
I wasn't gonna get it) were very different.

On Sat, May 9, 2015 at 12:19 PM, Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro at gnome.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I put together a desired installation experience wishlist. Let's
> discuss and consider forwarding this to the Anaconda developers as a
> request.
>
> * Remove the timezone selection spoke. This spoke is redundant with
> gnome-initial-setup.
> * Remove or simplify the network configuration spoke. In the live
> installer, this spoke allows setting only the system hostname, but it
> follows different rules for setting the hostname than GNOME/systemd.
> The spoke should either follow hostnamed's rules for pretty hostnames
> (i.e. allows capital letters, spaces, etc. without any complaint), or
> the spoke should be removed. If we keep it, it should allow the user
> to set a "computer name" (avoiding technical terminology like
> "hostname") and should not include the phrase "network configuration."
> * Remove root password configuration. It's confusing how this is
> different from the user's admin account password. Advanced users can
> set a root password after installation if desired.
> * Remove user account creation. This is redundant with gnome-initial
> -setup.
> * Remove hub and spokes: simply go straight to keyboard layout
> selection after language selection, then from there to disk layout,
> optionally from there to the hostname panel, and then to the
> installation progress panel. This last panel will need a bit of a
> redesign, since it will be pretty empty otherwise.
>
> Clearly this is mostly a list of things to remove, rather than things
> to add. The goal is to make installation as simple and easy as
> possible.
>
> Changes to gnome-initial-setup: Skip language and keyboard layout
> selection in user creation mode. These panels cannot reasonably be
> removed from Anaconda, so we should use them only in existing user
> mode (when a new user account is created after installation). They're
> redundant in user creation mode.
>
> This proposal leaves the disk layout spoke untouched, which is the
> most confusing portion of the installation experience, but it's more
> than enough changes for one release already.
>
> Thoughts?
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