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On 01/18/2013 01:26 PM, Bill Davidsen
wrote:
David A.
De Graaf wrote:
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.
After reading this, and the first reply to it, I will cease trying
to install fc18 on my laptop. "New for the sake of being
different" is a way of life in Fedora, and I find that the need to
have the latest is the only objective being given value, while no
thought is being given to preserving the value of experience
gained by current users. I suspect that most users of any new
release are already users of some previous release, why change to
some new way of doing things which is (a) less functional, (b)
offers benefit only or mostly to new installations, and (c)
appears to lack even a hint of convenience to those who have been
installing Fedora (and before that Redhat) for decades.
I have been unable to use my existing
partitions as I wish.
The chorus sings "Amen!!"
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.
My setup exactly.
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.
At this point, I'll stop saying "Me, too" and just say that this
is the unfriendliest and least intuitive partitioning setup I have
ever used, thinking that putting a GUI on an ill-designed process
makes it somehow easy to use is a perfect example of "lipstick on
a pig" thinking.
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.
WOW!......I think I will wait for the next iteration of Fedora
(19....or maybe even 20!) before upgrading! I realize that the
latest and greatest are fun to play with, but I don't just "play"
with this machine...I also WORK with it and hence I cannot afford to
have anything untoward or unseemly happen to the disk that holds my
documents and such, (I also realize a backup would preserve my setup
now as it is safely and without harm, and I do backup
my drive...religiously!) But I just don't think I want to go through
the headache of having to scour mailing lists or forums just to have
my sound return....or to be able to do something that I am able to
do now with no problems....I'm sure F19 will come with it's OWN set
of issues, but at least by then I'll have gotten ahold of some newer
hardware that will be memory maxed...along with a bigger HD...(right
now I'm pretty much riding along with a 320GB SATA HD!) I plan on
getting a hold of something that will accomodate 8GB of memory...and
I'm thinking I might try for a 1TB drive...but if that's not
feasible I will get a 500GB and ride that along until the next
version comes out as well. As for right now, I have way too much
riding on this laptop to just go and fudge things up right now....so
patience will prevail...I MIGHT get F18 after another 5
months....because I'm sure by then they'll have worked out a lot of
the kinks...and handled as many bugs as possible!.....but for right
now..I think its pretty much a done deal...I'm "frozen" at F17 until
19 comes out!
EGO II
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