F20 Installs Fail From Every Angle

[Brian Hanks]

Maybe I'm just getting old, but it seems to me that Fedora is becoming 
less and less stable with each release.  I've just tried repeatedly to 
install Fedora 20 using a myriad of different methods over three 
different machines.  Not a single attempt was successful.

I've been using RedHat/Fedora since version 1.1 back in 1995 and I don't 
think I've ever been as frustrated by the installation process as I am 
now.  It seems to me that the old installer was much more stable and 
capable of dealing with complicated installation scenarios.  With each 
release I hope for improvements to the installation process, but I am 
repeatedly disappointed.

Here's what I've tried so far and the outcome of each attempt:

1.  Fedup Upgrade of two different HP laptops each currently with Fedora 
19 and simple partitioning (ext4 only).  I've attempted this upgrade 
multiple times on each machine.  It fails every time with a VirtualBox 
dependency error.  When I check the dependency issue that is reported I 
find that all of the packages are actually installed. Ignoring the error 
does not work either as the upgrade does not succeed.

2.  DVD/USB install (64-bit F20 DVD ISO) of an older custom desktop 
(Intel E6550 chip) currently with Fedora 19 and complex partitioning 
(LVM & RAID 1).  I've tried four times to do this install from DVD/USB.  
Each time the installation has terminated with an unexpected error.  
Twice this happened early in the installation process and twice when 
attempting to install the boot loader.  In all four cases, I used 
BugZilla from within the installer to report the issue.  In all four 
cases it indicated that there was an open bug for the issue.

3.  Net install (64-bit F20 boot.iso) of an older custom desktop (Intel 
E6550 chip) currently with Fedora 19 and complex partitioning (LVM & 
RAID 1).  I managed to successfully  get through the entire installation 
process and reboot the machine only to be greeted with the dreaded 
"Welcome to emergency mode."  message on my screen.

I fully admit that I am not participating in the pre-release testing to 
the degree that I did in the past, so I guess I shouldn't complain.  
That said, it just seems like the installation process should be a lot 
more stable than what I have experienced.  If it were, there would 
likely be a lot more Fedora users out there.

If you have any insight that will help complete one of the above failed 
installations, please let me know.


Thanks,
Brian