Fwd: Re: rant of the day: installing fedora

[Temlakos]

On 07/08/2013 08:58 AM, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> Alexander Volovics wrote:
>
>> Du calme, Francois. Ce que nous voyons ici c'est:
>> 'Monsieur Hulot et les ordinateurs' ou 'Francois et les ordinateurs'.
>>
>> First there are 'installation guides' (though one is too terse and the
>> other long-winded and turgid).
>> By browsing these you would have known about 'manual partitioning',
>> 'keeping existing partitions', 'choosing desktops', etc. in the new
>> anaconda setup.
>>
>> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/19/html/Installation_Quick_Start_Guide/index.html
>>
>> https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/19/html/Installation_Guide/index.html
>> Reflect before you 'rant'.
> Je ne suis pas d'accord.
>
> The complaint was completely justified.
> The default should never be to make a dramatic change,
> unless this is essential.
> The default should always be to leave things as they are,
> as far as possible.
>
> But even if you don't accept that,
> and also believe users should read
> what looks like a 100-page document before installing
> (in general, the people who write Fedora installation manuals
> are somewhat deficient in common sense,
> believing that the more information given the better),
> I don't actually see in the manuals you refer to
> any statement of how to avoid automatic re-partitions.
> Both show the same screen shot, and then say
> ----------------------
> Figure 9.17. Disk Partitioning Setup
>
> On this screen you can choose to create the default partition layout
> automatically, or choose to partition storage devices manually
> to create a custom layout.
> ----------------------
> But I don't see anything on the screen shot as shown
> offering this choice.
>
>

And this is why I started looking for upgrade methods. It became clear 
to me that Anaconda now existed for one purpose only: to make a fresh 
install of the entire partition system and force the system 
administrator to restore the /home system from backup, or else store all 
users' files on paired servers. All very well in the enterprise but 
/not/ for the individual user running a system at home (as in "domicile").

I can understand--just barely--deciding that using Anaconda to upgrade 
an existing installation had too many problems, and now you had this 
new, nifty tool called "fedup" that could handle that sort of upgrade. 
What I cannot understand is forcing a complete reformat of the hard 
drive just because you want a fresh re-installation. It's bad enough 
having to re-install every application you had (and risking forgetting 
what applications you had loaded on the old system) without having to 
write down military-grade login username and password to restore 
/home/everyuser from online backup. (Not to mention that this solution 
costs money.)

And avoiding that reformat shouldn't have to mean "going through the 
back door."

Temlakos