On 22 March 2014 03:54, Chris Murphy <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 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. > And yes, it's fair to bring up what money bags companies with more money and resources than god. Because this is an area where they've all considered what you're describing, is an edge case. Not common at all. Let's put it this way. I review and evaluate software for a living and have done for about 18y now. I have been using Linux since 1996 and have reviewed something like 20 or 30 distributions in that time. Fedora 20's is *the least flexible* and least-capable installer I have ever seen on any distro of any kind, including x86, 68k, PowerPC or SPARC hardware since 1996. > 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. 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'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. > The reality is, you get either stability or you get features. You don't get both. Everyone else manages. > But I've seen that many times with the OS X installer: flat out refusal, "go format the drive in Disk Utility." I'm happy to believe you. OS X is fussier. But I'll tell you what, in this room I have PowerMacs booting MacOS 9, 10.4, 10.5 and 10.4 Server and MorphOS. MorphOS was a complete pig - I had to use an Ubuntu boot CD and Drive Genius to get a disk config it could install to, but I managed it. Sharing with both 10.4 and 10.5 on the same drive. Fedora - nope. Not a single one of my test machines. CentOS, yes, although I've seen it fail too. Fedora, nope. > So really, anaconda is extremely tolerant Not in my direct personal experience, no, it is not. > and I think that's something of a problem too. It probably should be disqualifying a lot of nut case layouts, and just saying no. Personally, not on anyone's behalf - that is insane. If the config is legal, it should be able to handle anything it's pointed at where there is at least one partition with enough room, or enough empty space to create such a partition. No legal layout should be refused. > And you have a bug for this? No, what I have is material for a really bad product review. > It's *really* difficult to get the installer to inadvertently delete partitions. It requires two clicks: selection, then deletion. For guided partitioning, the button is labeled "delete" whereas the button in manual partitioning is labeled as a minus symbol. It didn't just randomly delete it. It formatted it, then refused to install on it; 16GB was apparently not enough. Then I could not re-select that partition. So I deleted it, but the installer wouldn't create a new one. > The idea is to think less about the details of the layout and more about the outcome you want. TBH I don't care what the idea is or was if the installer can't cope with a PC happily running 4 OSes already. > This is understandably confusing if you're really familiar with storage stack creation. But most people aren't. I hope that I have demonstrated that I am not unfamiliar. > If you remain attached that what you're doing in Manual Partitioning is in fact partitioning, you'll continue to be frustrated. IOW if I want to create the partitions and then put Fedora in what I've pre-created, it won't do it? Then it is broken. > I didn't say "well it works for me" I said it's ridiculous to say it's impossible to use. Then I will say it again to try to make my point. I found it impossible to install the OS on my machine. The installer could not understand my disk layout. Every other distro I've tried can, therefore I feel safe in saying it's F20's problem. > And I'll partly walk that back because if you're going to be entitled to stubborness, and unwilling to adapt to the layouts you can have rather than the layout you want, then yes you might be hitting a brick wall. Yup. A brick wall of not running an OS that can't handle my multiboot scenario successfully shared by 3 other working OSes. > But I assure you that the vast majority of the world's installers would have poo poo'd you much sooner. And again, no, you're wrong. Sorry, but you are and I can, if you wish, show you. > Now, if you didn't file a bug about your anecdote, I want you to imagine me staring at you with a look of "really?" Because this much effort complaining yet no bug report? How exactly do you expect it to get better? I have the info I wanted for a comparative OS article, like this one from a year ago: http://www.theregister.co.uk/Print/2013/04/26/xbuntu_round_up/ My job there was done. Meantime, for further Fedora eval, it's going in a VirtualBox. Sad, but that's all it seems able to handle. I'll try CentOS on the bare metal and see if that copes. -- Liam Proven * Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven@xxxxxxxxx * GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven@xxxxxxxxxxx * Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 * Cell: +44 7939-087884 -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines Have a question? Ask away: http://ask.fedoraproject.org
