Improving the Fedora boot experience

[Alec Leamas]

On 2013-03-12 18:30, Chris Murphy wrote:
>
> On Mar 12, 2013, at 8:45 AM, John.Florian at dart.biz 
> <mailto:John.Florian at dart.biz> wrote:
>
>> > From: Chris Murphy <lists at colorremedies.com 
>> <mailto:lists at colorremedies.com>>
>> > > Kernel update breaks system. User ignorant of hold-down key approach
>> > > is stuck. Menu at least advertises possibility of alternative.
>> >
>> > This logic doesn't work. The user ignorant of holding down even
>> > random keys, let alone what will become a common knowledge key, is
>> > also ignorant of the existence of a boot menu, and even more
>> > ignorant of the notion they need to choose a prior kernel.
>>
>> And said users are supposed to become more enlightened by obscuring 
>> the boot loader with an invisible cloak just because grub burns your 
>> retinas?
>
> No, I'm saying that the idea people become enlightened by seeing boot 
> manager menus is an idea worthy of ridicule.
>
>> I for one learned a hell of a lot about *nix systems by playing with 
>> (among many other things) the the kernel command line and doing 
>> things like "init=/bin/bash".  While I find grub quite arcane, I do 
>> like to tinker with low-level details that affect the higher-level 
>> things.  Such tinkering got me a decent career.  Like it or not, 
>> general purpose PC hardware needs a boot loader. 
>
> It's tinkering that presents potential for enlightenment. Not a 
> visible boot manager menu by default.
>
> This "GRUB must be visible for users to become curious and 
> knowledgeable" meme is f'n annoying deification. Curious users will 
> still be curious, those who want knowledge will seek it. The 
> bootloader menu god does not get one byte of credit for my knowledge 
> or intellectual curiosity.
>
> It's as if every Windows (let alone Mac) user is a complete, utter, 
> retard in the minds of such linux users because they don't suffer 
> through every conceivable UX nightmare of the past and present. We 
> must bleed the new users with leeches! Yes! They must be bled out 
> properly in order to properly understand the linux the way we do, and 
> it can only be done with leeches! We need more leeches, not less!
>
> No one wants to take away your option to use leeches. I realize it's 
> shocking heresy that there might be new concepts, and emphasis on what 
> sorts of experiences people need to have, let alone MUST have by default.
>
>
> Chris Murphy
>
>
Although black/white is a nicer visual experience, I start to think that 
this is, as usual, mostly just dull nuances of grey...

I  *do* appreciate the attempts to get a clean, graphically consistent 
boot experience. And to be frank, I wonder if not WIn 8 (and perhaps 
Mac) has got it right. It's just that a Fedora box isn't a Win8 or a 
Mac, and the boot UI cant change that.  We have:
- Kernel updates done regularly, sometimes breaking boot.
- Support for multiple OS, our BootCamp stuff.
- Boot processes which suddenly stalls  running a diskcheck on a X TB 
disk,  creating user FUD.
- You name it...

So, how should all this be handled? Keeping the old interface, grub2 
menu etc.  the way we are used to? There must be better options.

Or hide everything, don't give user a damned hint (besides possibly a 
google logo on the screen ;) ). This cannot be the final answer either IMHO.


--alec
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