Proposing new dual booting release criteria

[Adam Williamson]

On Mon, 2014-09-08 at 11:09 -0600, Chris Murphy wrote:
> re: dual boot criteria for existing Linux + new Fedora install
> 
> On Sep 7, 2014, at 6:52 AM, Michael Catanzaro <mcatanzaro at gnome.org> wrote:
> 
> > "The installer must be able to install into free space alongside
> > existing GNU/Linux installations that are intended to be detected by the
> > upstream software for detecting previously-installed operating systems,
> > and install a bootloader which can boot into each previous
> > installation."
> 
> - Blocking on dual boot install failures, yes. Triple+ boot support is not realistic, although it benefits the more we do the right things with dual boot.
> 
> {
> 
> The installer must be able to install into free space alongside an existing GNU/Linux installation, install and configure a bootloader that will boot both systems, within the limitations of the upstream bootloader."
> Within the limitations? [show] Purpose of this clause is to not require us to fix upstream bootloader bugs or design limitations.
> 
> }

Hi folks! So if I may, can we try and reset this thread to the criteria
discussion? it'd be good to have any new criteria in place before we hit
Beta TC1.

So I believe we have under discussion the following criteria:

1. "The installer must be able to install into free space alongside an
existing clean Windows installation and install a bootloader which can
boot into both Windows and Fedora."

This one is simply dropping the UEFI get-out clause from the current
Final criterion. I am a big solid +1 to this. If no-one has any
objections let's get this one implemented this week.

2. "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; if the boot menu presents OS X entries, they should boot OS
X."

(so far as I could see on a quick skim back through the thread, this was
the most recent version of the OS X proposal). I am +1 to this too, it
seems reasonable. We could perhaps insert that the Fedora install
process should not render the OS X install unbootable from the EFI boot
manager?

3. The installer must be able to install into free space alongside an
existing GNU/Linux installation, install and configure a bootloader that
will boot both systems, within the limitations of the upstream
bootloader."
Within the limitations? [show] Purpose of this clause is to not require
us to fix upstream bootloader bugs or design limitations.

This is the complex one we're still struggling with. I think the above
is possibly a little broad and could do with either limiting to
stock-ish installs of 'commonly-used' or 'popular' distributions, or
some more vaguely-worded wiggle room clause. I don't want to have to
come up with some kind of criterion judo to justify us not slipping
Final release three weeks to fix, I don't know, dual-boot with an xfs
install of Fermi or something (no disrespect intended, Fermi users...)
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net