On Mar 23, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Liam Proven <lproven@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > The thing is, edge cases like this are really informative. It's really > hard to trace an obscure intermittent bug and it's really hard to file > a useful bug report when the bug is "it doesn't work for me" and you > can't really add more data than that. OK but what you've done is said what I've never heard anyone say, which is having never successfully installed Fedora to baremetal in 10 years. And on top of it, you haven't stated the nature of the failure, either the error messages you've gotten, or the logs the installer always produces from the moment it's launched. > But if you have a whole bunch of users saying "this doesn't work for > me" or "I find this really hard" or "this program can't give me the > options I want", then that to me seems like a big obvious signal that > something is badly wrong and needs examination and possibly > re-consideration. Define "whole bunch", how this is ascertained, and how the assertion applies to Fedora. > It's not much use for tracing a particular bug - chances are that for > everyone who's failed to install an instance of F20, the reason is > different. There's no one bug to file. I don't even know what you mean by "failed to install" because there are several ways that can manifest but in any case the installer always writes log files from the moment it's launched, figuring out the problem isn't difficult especially when it's reproducible. > > In this case, for instance, I'd point the accusing finger at the > installer developers' assumptions that: > > [a] on a system with 2 disks, either of those disks can be usefully > analysed by the install program in isolation. That's an invalid > assumption and the result is a program that can't handle many common > instances. I can't tell whether you're referring to Fedora's installer or not. But it doesn't work this way. > [b] that one will want to install the bootloader on the MBR of the > drive with the root filesystem. That's an invalid assumption, too. Why, and what alternative is valid? > [c] that one will want to install a bootloader into an MBR and nowhere > else. That's an invalid assumption. A default bootloader had to be chosen, and GRUB2 is what was chosen. The boot.img portion can only go in the MBR, and the core.img is too big to fit in a VBR so it's usually put in the MBR gap (or BIOS Boot on GPT disks). There really isn't a work around for this given the design of GRUB2. If you want to install a bootloader to a VBR then a different bootloader selection is needed, such as extlinux. Fedora supports this as a hidden option, right now it's too much effort to give it equally visible support. I'm not aware of any other distribution that even supports two bootloaders. All kernel updates support either GRUB or extlinux (and others). > [d] that on a system with multiple Linux installs, you can group sets > of partitions by install - in other words, these ones belong to > install #1, these to install #2, these to install #3. That's invalid > for me - I share /home and swap between all my installs. Only the root > FS is unique to each. That breaks F20's installer. Define "breaks" please produce log files for these install attempts. I have done what you suggest and it doesn't break for me, it installs and uses a pre-existing /home and swap just fine. > > These are not bugs. These are design errors, where someone has assumed > that their personal preconceptions are universal truths. Flawed logic. The design decisions aren't going to mesh with everyone's requirements. Multibooting on BIOS computers is fundamentally flawed besides not being standardized at all, and therefore there is no one correct way to arrive at a multiboot system, and no one correct way to interpret a multiboot system and always support installing to multiboot systems. Chris Murphy -- 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
