"D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh@xxxxxxxxxx> writes: > | From: Tom Horsley <horsley1953@xxxxxxxxx> > > | 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 -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
