Installer inadequacies

Thu Jan 17 21:03:10 UTC 2013

Fedora 18.

What a disaster!  What were they thinking when they threw away a
perfectly good installer and inflicted this new User Interface on us?
Whoever decided to reinvent disk partitioning and embed it in this
installer should be taken out to the woodshed and whupped.  Has
everyone forgotten the dictum that each program should do one thing
and do it well?  Reinventing disk partitioning here is a total disaster.
It isn't nearly as good as fdisk, gparted and a host of other perfectly
usable programs.

I have been unable to use my existing partitions as I wish.
I have a pretty simple laptop configuration:
  /dev/sda1    /boot        .5 GB
  /dev/sda2    Windows     3.7 GB
  /dev/sda3    extended
   /dev/sda5   /          20. GB     encrypted
   /dev/sda6   /f16       20. GB     encrypted
   /dev/sda7   /home     109. GB     encrypted
   /dev/sda8   swap        1.5 GB    encrypted

Note that /boot is not encrypted but all the other Linux partitions
are.  There are two root partitions that I use in a ping-pong fashion
to hold the latest and prior Fedora systems.  The boot menu allows
either kernel to be booted, which used to be easy with grub, but has
become nightmarishly difficult with grub2.  Either kernel uses the
same /home and swap.

Installing F18, I intended to switch /dev/sda6 to /, and save
/dev/sda5 as /f17.  But the installer wouldn't allow it.

I will repeat here the setup and selection process to document the
failures.

When I entered the Storage/Installation Destination (with no disks
selected) I selected the sole disk available for installation, an ATA
WDC WD1600BEVE-1, and a big blue area became highlighted.
I checked the box saying "Encrypt my data, I'll set a passphrase
later.".  Then clicked on "Full disk summary and options...".
This showed a box listing the one and only disk, and informed me that
of the 152.62 GB capacity, only 1.89 MB was free space.  That was
correct;  the disk was fully partitioned and previously allocated to
appropriate uses.  I clicked on "Set as Boot Device" just to be sure...
then Close.

There was nothing left to click on except Continue, so I Continued.

A warning presented:  I needed 3.36 GB to install Fedora but there's
only 276 MB free.  But there's 152.62 GB Space in selected disks
reclaimable by deleting (!) partitions.

Well thats nice, but I don't want to delete any partitions.  
My existing partitions are fine; I just want to reuse one of them!
So now what?

There are three checkable boxes:
  Cancel & add more disks       (Not likely; it's a laptop)
  Modify software selection     (I haven't even selected any yet)
  Reclaim space                 (Not appealing, but its all that's left) 
But I'll check the box:  "I don't need help; let me customize disk
partitioning.".  That sounds like exactly what I want.

I'm asked to enter a passphrase for my encrypted disks.  (I'd better
type this carefully, to match what's already in use.)

I'm now presented with a list of existing filesystems that I can
remove to free up space.  However, they are not identified either by
partition name (/dev/sda1) or current role (/boot).  I have two
identically sized root partitions, /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6.  One contains
the old F16 that I want to discard; the other F17 that I want to keep.
Should I guess?  50:50 chance?  Right?  I have to guess.

I highlight one and mark it for deletion.  Then click "Reclaim space".

(BTW, I have no way to  know exactly when this deletion will occur.
I'm repeating this exercise to record this disastrous experience, intending
to stop just before committing the changes.  I'll be really pissed if
I lose my mostly completed new F18 installation.)

Surprise!  I'm popped back to the main menu.  The "Installation
Destination" item has no warning icon, so the installer seems perfectly
happy with the 20 GB space I've just freed up.  But it has never
bothered to ask me which other partitions are to be used for /boot,
/home, swap, or the old /f17.  Apparently, it has decided, in its
wisdom, to put the whole F18 installation into that 20 GB partition.

Unbelievable!

I can't allow that.  So, back to the main menu, where I notice it says
"Use automatic partitioning", or the like.

I recall my previous encounter with this "logic tree" was very different.
Perhaps I had chosen some sort of manual partitioning.  Let's try
that.

Oh, the machine's frozen up and is unresponsive.  CTL-ALT-DEL to start
over...    Didn't work.  CTL-ALT-F2 gives a prompt, then 'reboot'.

Ok, 2nd try.  (Actually, 5th try)
This time, I'll do Software Selection first, and pick Xfce and its
add-ons (to retain my sanity).  OK.  That's done.

Now, back to Installation Destination.
Pick the sole ATA disk, select Encrypt my data, view the "Full disk
summary", and set it as the Boot Device.  Continue.

Warning:  Not enough space.  This time, check "I don't need help,
let me customize disk partitioning".  Click "Reclaim Space".

Ah, now I see the Manual Partitioning page that I'd seen before.
In the left panel is
  New Fedora 18 Installation
  Unknown
Click on Unknown to expand it, and I see my 6 existing partitions,
properly labeled as sda1,... sda8, with the four Linux partitions
marked Encrypted.  The sda1 is highlighted and on the right side are
boxes for Name:  Mount Point:  and Label:   so I fill them in:
    Name:           sda1
    Mount Point:    /boot
    Label:          (blank)     Desired Capacity (MB):  502
I expand "Customize", which offers the opportunity to Reformat,
but I don't want to do that, so I click "Apply Changes".

Nothing seems to happen, but if I expand "New Fedora 18 Installation"
I see there's now something called Boot listed there.

The next partition to be assigned is sda5, which is to be mounted
at /f17.  It contains the prior version of Fedora.  It is encrypted,
so I supply the passphrase.  Instantly, sda5 disappears from Unknown,
and a new item appears in the left panel:  "Fedora Linux 17 for i686"
That is not at all what I wanted.  There is no opportunity to specify
it as a mountpoint, /f17, for the new installation.  The /boot partition
is now assigned to both the New Installation and the Fedora 17 item.

The next partition remaining in Unknown is sda6, which is to be formatted
and used as / for the New Fedora 18 Installation.  With the encryption key
supplied, it also flys away from the Unknown group.  It does not appear
in "New Fedora 18 Installation", but creates yet another new, third item,
"Fedora Linux 18 for i686".  It is Fedora 18 because I had just previously
installed F18 there.  In the original attempt, this partition held F17,
so the installer wanted to create an instance called Fedora 17.

It is apparent that the manual partitioning scheme looks inside the
filesystem and decides, on its own, what will be done with it.

It has no business doing that.

The assignment of each and every partition must be specified by the
user.  Also, whether to format a partition or not must be chosen by
the user, not by the installer.  No chance was given to format the 
partition for /.  Instead it was assigned to another instance based on its
content, which was intended to be erased.

I have no idea what it means to have three different items listed in
the lefthand panel.  If I continue with "Finish Partitioning", what
can possibly happen?  In my view, partitioning is a monolithic
operation.  It tells how all the partitions that exist are to be used.
If some remain unused, that's fine.

Above all, the installer has absolutely no role in choosing how, or if,
some partitions are to be assigned.  If I want to hang the old root
filesystem at the mountpoint /f17, that's my business.

I have two more partitions to assign:  /home and swap, but it is
pointless to continue.  Based on previous experiments, they would
likely be assigned to one of the wrong "instances", with me powerless
to alter the error.

In short, I found it utterly impossible to achieve my simple intention
of installing F18 / in the place previously used by F16 /, mounting the
old F17 / as /f17, and using the existing /boot (unencrypted), /home,
and swap partitions with the new F18 /.

This new F18 User Interface installer is a complete disaster.
It is incapable of doing the most elementary partitioning and is too
"smart" for its own good.
It should never have been let out of its cage.

I did manage to install F18 by extraordinary effort.
Using a separate Live F17 Xfce USB stick, I cleared the old F16 root
partition:
  mkfs.ext4 -L f18 /dev/sda6

With a content-free partition, the installer finally did allow its use
in a "New Fedora 18 Installation".  The /boot, /home and swap partitions
were also associated.  It remained impossible to have the old F17 root
mounted as /f17, though.  When the new F18 was booted, the encrypted F17
root partition was not listed in the /dev/mapper list of filesystems,
and a special workaround had to be devised.

Workaround

Here's how to mount the encrypted old f17 partition:
  # cryptsetup luksOpen /dev/sda5 f17enc
  Enter passphrase for /dev/sda5: ++++++++++++++++
That creates the required entry in /dev/mapper that the installer forgot:
  # ll /dev/mapper
  total 0
  crw------- 1 root root 10, 236 Jan 16 19:33 control
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       7 Jan 17 11:38 f17enc -> ../dm-3
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       7 Jan 16 19:33 luks-0fc2a8e0-9d71-4af7-853e-afb3c89794e2 -> ../dm-1
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       7 Jan 16 19:33 luks-9800d5dd-f281-4750-b0cf-42282401ace0 -> ../dm-2
  lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root       7 Jan 16 19:33 luks-dc53437b-7efa-426c-870c-972d96f5f0ca -> ../dm-0

It can then be mounted in the usual way:
  # mount /dev/mapper/f17enc /f17

I don't know yet how to accomplish this automatically on a reboot.

-- 
        David A. De Graaf    DATIX, Inc.    Hendersonville, NC
        dad at datix.us         www.datix.us

Having children is like having a bowling alley installed in your brain.