Improving the Fedora boot experience

[John.Florian at dart.biz]

> From: Chris Murphy <lists at colorremedies.com>
> 
> On Mar 12, 2013, at 8:45 AM, John.Florian at dart.biz wrote:
> 
> > From: Chris Murphy <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.

Ridicule it all you like, but I *did* in fact learn things by seeing the 
boot process at work.  I'll grant it may not be as esthetically pleasing, 
but as one who's always sought function before form, I really don't see 
any harm in grub showing that it's there.  Computers are tools, not 
objects of art.  If grub is so evil and shouldn't be part of the Fedora 
experience, why is grub even being used?

 
> 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. 

I agree regarding tinkering, but how many people are not going to realize 
it can be tinkered with if they don't even know it's there?

 
> 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.

Maybe not yours, but do you honestly believe you can speak for everyone's 
experience?  I'll argue that this "everything must be hidden" meme is just 
as annoying to some other fraction of the community.  I don't think either 
of us has the data to show which group has more members.


> 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!

I have no idea what you're talking about here, but your world must damned 
wonderful if a visible grub menu is a "UX nightmare".  This fantastical 
drama does little for the technical merits of the discussion.

> 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.

I personally could not care less about the defaults Fedora uses.  I've 
been overriding them for years.  I'm just glad I was able to learn these 
things before everything became hidden.  I'm only concerned about the 
future generations that are given a shiny black box with no way to see 
what magic happens inside.  Today's youth have none of the curiosity that 
I and my friends had at their age and I blame it on this "you don't need 
to know how it works" mentality that is infecting everything.  If you 
really want that Apple experience, why don't you just use their goods?

--
John Florian
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