Proposing new dual booting release criteria

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2014-09-08 at 12:05 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
> > On Thu, 2014-09-04 at 15:50 -0500, Michael Catanzaro wrote:
> >> 
> >> So are we fine with the Windows and OS X criteria as originally
> >> proposed? Adam, would these be better as beta blockers or as final
> >> blockers?
> 
> Historically it's been for final. All release criteria have a sort of catch all for major issues:

Oh man, you discovered the get-out clauses...you're not supposed to read
that carefully!

> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_21_Beta_Release_Criteria#Beta_Blocker_Bugs
> 

> Installer is critical path, and its bugs tend not to be fixable after
> the face, so a bug with "severity rating of high" or greater can block
> release. 

We really try to avoid using the 'get-out clause', I actually lobbied to
kill it entirely back in the day when we were doing the initial work on
the current criteria and review process but didn't win that fight.
Especially given that the severity system is so poorly observed in
Fedora, I really like to try and stick to the functional criteria where
possible. But yes, the get-out clause is there.

> Also, any bug that "hinders execution of required Beta test plans or
> dramatically reduces test coverage" can block release. An example bug
> I think qualifies:
>  
> "Windows NTFS volume corrupted beyond repair during installation"
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1120964 

There is also the data corruption criterion,
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_21_Final_Release_Criteria#Data_corruption :

"All known bugs that can cause corruption of user data must be fixed or
documented at Common F21 bugs."

which can obviously be used to cover issues that cause active damage to
other-OS data.

> 
> 
> Dual boot OS X + Fedora
> >> 
> >> "The installer must be able to install into free space alongside an
> >> existing clean OS X installation and install a bootloader which can boot
> >> into both OS X and Fedora, OR the installer must prominently warn the
> >> user that he may be unable to boot OS X after installation, allowing the
> >> user to cancel installation and reboot to OS X."
> 
> I think this potentially puts too much work on the installer and test
> teams for Fedora 21, for minimal benefit. For example with encrypted
> OS X installs, the above binds us to detect this, and then UI to warn
> the user. 

It depends to an extent on the definition of 'clean', of course. Does
enabling encryption count as a 'clean' install of OS X? Is encryption
the default for OS X?

> At the most, for Fedora 21, I'd say the installer could detect if it's
> Apple hardware, and refer the user to this URL no matter their current
> disk layout: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1310 which shows them how
> to boot OS X. Perhaps this could be put in release notes, or common
> bugs, or the install guide instead?
> 
> Suggest the following.
> 
> {
> 
> The installer must be able to install into free space alongside an
> existing OS X installation, install and configure a bootloader that
> will boot Fedora; and if offered, also boot OS X.
> 
> }
> 
> - This means non-working OS X entries [1] need to be removed somehow
> [2].
> - It allows a future fix that includes an OS X boot entry.
> 
> [1]
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=893179
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=982847
> 
> [2]
> Option a: We already detect Macs as part of mactel-boot support; so if
> it's a Mac, then /etc/default/grub should contain a line:
> GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=true
> A consequence of this is any Mac with an existing Linux would not get
> boot entries for that Linux instance; violating the Linux + Fedora
> criteria if there's also no OS X on the system. But a Mac without OS
> X? Rare.
> 
> Option b: Patch /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober deleting just the OS X
> entries creation.

This approach does seem workable for Macs, as unlike PCs, we can rely on
and document the firmware's behaviour to a reasonable extent (we don't
know if they'll change it in future, but you know, that's a risk you
often run). "Make it work or don't do it" seems like a reasonable
standard.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net