RANT . Very poor install experience. 10 hours and just got it working.

[Pete Travis]

On Apr 14, 2015 9:44 PM, "Robin Laing" <MeSat at telusplanet.net> wrote:
>
> I waited until I had calmed down and edited this post.  Originally it was
written on Sunday April 12.
>
> This is a rant and there are bug reports due to my issues.  Some are
automatic from the install issues and others created or to be created by me.
>
> I have been working on this laptop all weekend but all the re-install
issues are from today(Sunday).
>
> Laptop that was running F21 with a dual boot.  All of a sudden Fedora
wouldn't boot.  Three kernels in the grub list but none would boot.  For
some reason, the /boot/efi partition couldn't be mounted when booting into
Fedora.  It could be related to the bug I reported about not being able to
mount vfat partitions from rescue mode.
>
> Grub would let me boot into rescue mode but then it wouldn't allow me to
mount vfat partitions.  I submitted a bug on this.
>   Bug 1210551
>
> Since that time, I have tried to re-install F21 onto the system.  We
prefer KDE so I downloaded the KDE spin and tried that.  Multiple attempts
with failures in each case.  I will be submitting a bug report(s) on the
issues.  I have pictures to show that the install was stuck but still
telling me that the install was complete.
>
> Downloaded the normal 64 bit workstation install image, and tried that.
Two failures at least and one automatic bug created on the second crash.
First crash just froze the machine.
>    Bug 1158975
>
> In all cases, it looks like the issue is related to partitioning the
drive.  As this is a dual boot with Windows 8.1 secure boot (worked before
F20 to F21 using fedup) I was not expecting any issues as F21 as it is
better and ran better on this machine than F20.
>
> Due to the windows install, the drive has partitions that are windows
related and cannot be moved or are hidden.  Thus have to be worked around.
The Linux partitions are in the middle of the Windows partitions.
>
> Second, I hate LVM.  Have lost data in the past due to LVM so I won't use
it again unless I need to have the flexibility of LVM.  EXT4 all the way.
>
> I wanted to use the present partitions so I just tried to use them again
as I have in the past.  The Installer didn't recognize them as being an
installed version.  In the past, the installer would ask if I wanted to
repair the installed version of Linux.  No joy.  I tried to delete the
partitions with the installer partition program and reformat them using the
partition program.  This is where it seemed to freeze on multiple
attempts.  I have a photo of the screen showing that two partitions are
assigned the same number.  It will be in the bug report.  This happened
with both the KDE and the Gnome installs so it is related to both
installers.
>
> I feel that the installer needs to be more like gparted so you can use
all the space.  I now have blank spaces due to the installer partitioning
program.
>
> In the one case where the Gnome workstation install reported that it was
complete, the reboot grub menu still had the old kernels from the previous
install which wouldn't work.
>
> I ended up using a live install to delete the partitions, and create a
BTFS partition with the blank space to ensure there was nothing there using
gparted (yum install in the live image).  Removed the EFI/fedora
directories from the system and then tried to install again with the KDE
live.  Failure!.  One failure with the Gnome installer.  The second attempt
with the Gnome install finally worked and is now updating. Hours yet to get
it up and configured for tomorrow morning for my son's school day.  Install
KDE, KVM, and applications etc.  Configure the system by morning.  It is
going to be a late night.
>
> At least his user directory is still there one of the partitions that I
didn't want to delete.  Data was backed up to a USB stick just in case.
>
> Yes, I am frustrated as I have said to many that Fedora is easy to
install and I am not drunk enough to not care.  :)  Now to submit bug
reports.
>
> Robin
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
Please follow up here to cite your bug reports, Robin.  I'm interested in
learning the details.

--Pete
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/users/attachments/20150415/377ae9cc/attachment.html>