Fedora Present and Future: a Fedora.next 2014 Update (Part I, "Why?")

[Ian Malone]

On 22 March 2014 16:40, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 22 March 2014 03:54, Chris Murphy <lists at colorremedies.com> wrote:
>
>> Are you asserting that people who bitch and whine about the installer are entitled to a monopoly on mocking hectoring tone; and unhelpful, annoying, unproductive engagement?
>
> I don't think any of us should do it, ideally. But perhaps in gentle
> chiding of someone who could have answered their question with Google
> in 10sec, then OK.
>
> When someone is unable to even install the whole OS, no. Inappropriate.
>
>> It is actually a complex layout.
>
> I beg to differ. It is not /trivial/ but it is not complete.
>
>> Most of the world's installers can't deal with what you just described.
>
> Factually incorrect. Windows 7, Ubuntu 13.10, Debian 7, Crunchbang and
> Elementary OS all had no problems.
>
> On my desktop PC, I have a similar layout with  Windows 8, Mac OS X
> 10.6 and Ubuntu 13.10. Again, no problems at all.
>
>> The #1 OS install today is software restore [...]
>
> In my extensive experience of OSes going back to when I entered the
> business in 1988, following about 6-7y as a hobbyist, this is
> incorrect. You're describing one OS, principally - modern Windows.
>

So, I read "#1 OS install today" as the installer for the #1 OS. There
were a couple of other possible interpretations, but seeing #2 as the
Windows retail/upgrade and #3 as Mac that made the most sense.

I'm not going to disagree about the installer flexibility though, the
new installer is strange.

>> The Fedora 20 installer's default/easy/guided/auto path installs to free space. Yet it has more options and outcomes than the total number of all possible options in both the Windows and OS X installers combined.
>
> That is not my direct personal experience. I can demonstrate what I
> mean with screenshots and comparative step-by-step walkthroughs.
>
>> Hmm. Now I believe you were just about to cite a bugzilla ID describing the above behavior?
>
> No. Why should I? Total failure to install the OS leaves me unable to
> use its bug-tracking tools, if any.
>

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/ can be accessed from most browsers. If
you have screenshots and step by step walkthroughs that would help
improve the installer then please send them there. Having them
languishing on your computer and complaining on the users list is not
likely to result in changes. Writing review articles that say "didn't
work" as some kind of revenge on the developers without giving them
any kind of chance to sort it out, even for the future, is just
vindictive.

> FWIW, I also tried installing on a completely empty standalone 250GB
> USB hard disk. It failed on that, too - it hung after the process
> began and never recovered. After about 6 hours, I power-cycled the
> machine.
>
> As I have said previously, I have /never/ successfully installed
> Fedora on actual hardware since v1.0 shipped in, what was it, 2003? I
> have installed Haiku, Aros, FreeBSD, PC BSD, dozens of Linux distros,
> Windows 2 through 8, SCO Xenix, SCO Unix, OpenSolaris, OpenVMS,
> FreeDOS, DR-DOS, MS-DOS, PC-DOS, OS/2 1 through eComStation 2, MacOS 6
> through OS X 10.9. I am *not* a newbie and I am *not* an inexperienced
> inexpert fumbler.
>

I suppose I should say at this point I've installed Fedora
successfully a few times over the years without trouble (can't give
exact count as upgraded a couple of times instead, but F20 and F19
spins most recently on two different machines). I've never found a
version of fedora that failed to install on the hardware I was using.
Again, if you're finding it wont install on something that's a bug and
it needs to be in bugzilla to have a hope of getting fixed. (Doesn't
guarantee it will get fixed, but it's a start.)

> I've only got Fedora running in VMs. Even Slackware is easier.
>
>> I've done hundreds of hours of installer testing over the last year. It has been really frustrating. This is the most complicated/capable installer I've ever worked with other than maybe the OpenSUSE installer. Out of the gate it offerred too much compared to the time/resources allotted for QA, debugging, and code changes needed.
>
> I have to tell you that in my experience of approaching a hundred
> installers, it is about the least capable of any C21 OS I have ever
> seen. I think it might beat eComStation but nothing else.
>

It sounds like either you've been spectacularly unlucky installing
Fedora or have some particular requirement (hardware, install setup)
that it is failing to deal with.




-- 
imalone
http://ibmalone.blogspot.co.uk