[GW-C] [ECOTONE] Re: rant of the day: installing fedora

[lee]

"D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh at mimosa.com> writes:

> | From: Tom Horsley <horsley1953 at gmail.com>
>
> | How did you get past the screen that only lets you pick a whole disk
> | drive then, as the only possible option after that, click "Done"?
> | (Or, as I did the first time I saw it, push the reset button :-).
> | 
> | No power on earth could get me to click "Done" under those circumstances
> | when installing on a system that contains data I want to preserve.
> | Only after trying the install on a totally trashable test system
> | did I find that "Done" actually means, "OK, now you get to pick
> | partitions."
> | 
> | I don't have enough trust available to believe that they surely
> | won't actually wipe out the whole disk (especially when every
> | other part of the redesign has been to reduce or eliminate options).
>
> I find the installer confusing.  I would need to take a movie of using
> it so I can actually accurately report the confusion.  But here goes
> an unreliable report:
>
> When you are selecting the disk(s) for the installer, you are NOT
> selecting the partitions.  I think that Tom didn't know this and hence
> was scared by this screen.  With good reason: I don't remember that
> this was explained clearly on the screen.

Yes, it tells you that your disks won't be touched before you click on
the Done button, and the obvious conclusion is that it may touch them
once you click it, possibly overwriting your data.

When you're finished partitioning, it tells you it won't touch anything
before you click the Finish button.  Apparently they have taken care not
to overwrite your data, but this part of the installer needs a thorough
redesign.  Even after trying it, I would not trust the installer not to
overwrite data when I click on the Done button.

If I had had disks with data on them when I tried out the installer, I
wouldn't have clicked on that Done button, either.  Not clicking that
button means no install.  That means no install when you have data on
disks you cannot physically disconnect before trying to install.

> Everything is obvious in retrospect.  Too bad we don't travel the
> right way in time for that to be good enough.

Nothing is obvious, imho.  I almost gave up trying to install Fedora
because it didn't seem possible to get the partitioning I wanted.

The installer tries to do the partitioning for you.  It totally ignores
that you may want to have your partitions in a particular order, like
swap partitions first because that may be faster.  It totally ignores
that you may want a particular partition --- like for /home --- on a
different disk.

What you need to do is run cfdisk or the like and create your partitions
before running the installer.  Then you need to get the installer to use
the partitioning you created, and it is kinda the opposite of obvious
how to that.  I only found out by chance when looking at the screen,
asking myself which distribution to try out instead.

There also needs to be a way to go back once you started partitioning.
You have to quit the installer and start over every time you're not
happy with the partitioning it tries to do.

You're probably screwed when you need LVM or software raid or encryption
with the partitioning you need.  Is there any way to get that?  Can you
install Fedora on software raid with the partitioning you need?  And can
you do that with encrypted partitions?

> Anaconda(?) really needs to cue the user about its state: the user
> needs to know when it is busy and the screen doesn't yet reflect
> the user's last action.  This comes up in more than one situation so I
> infer that it is a general Anaconda problem.

I didn't have the waiting time you experienced, and at no time I felt
that the progress wasn't shown.  The installation went fast (from an USB
stick) and flawless and everything worked out of the box.

Other than the partitioning and the installer not using the keyboard
layout I specified, I'm really impressed.

> Anaconda's screens need to be more wordy to make things clearer
> and less scary to the user.

Yes, it is not at all clear in any way at which point your disks might
be touched.

And there needs to be something like an option for extended partitioning
that allows you to do whatever you want.  Having the installer do it for
you is a nice option to have and it's not enough.

On a side note, you can now put /usr onto its own partition like it
should be.


-- 
Fedora 18