Re: [Base] Fedora Base Design Working Group (2014-02-21) meeting minutes and logs

[Chris Murphy <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mar 3, 2014, at 10:42 AM, Miloslav Trmač <mitr@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

2014-02-22 3:08 GMT+01:00 Chris Murphy <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

On Feb 21, 2014, at 2:38 PM, John.Florian@xxxxxxxx wrote:

> That makes a lot of sense, but I'd like to add that when doing custom partitioning, you can easily spend the bulk of your actual interaction time getting the partitioning customized exactly the way you want and when anaconda crashes,

What you're essentially suggesting is the necessary trade off between stability and features isn't being balanced, in your experience. I'd agree with that assessment. I've done hundreds of Windows installs and thousands of OS X installs and those installers never crash. Ever. Seriously never. You can throw the most bizarre crap at them, even a disk with 42 partitions of just linux and BSD and they don't crash. And what interaction time? It's point and install. There's nothing to interact with because there are no options.

> However, when I have my admin hat on, I want flexibility.

I don't find that a compelling argument for many reasons, not least of which is the tens of thousands of OS X and Windows admins who get few install time layout choices, and they seem quite content.

The necessary context to add here is that both OS X and Windows have much better _post-install_ layout choices. 

I don't want to get ride of Anaconda's encryption options in Automatic or Manual partitioning UIs.

I do want to get rid of ext2, ext3, vfat, and certainly RAID 4, in even the Manual Partitioning UI. And I question RAID 5/6 for rootfs.

Both can convert a non-encrypted filesystem to encrypted post-installation, online, without significant downtime.

Yes. At least Apple's is a live conversion (bi-directional) that permits rebooting, shutdown and sleep.

 Re: LVM, IIRC OS X is setting up CoreStorage by default; Windows uses plain partitions, but can convert plain partitions into Dynamic Disks without backup&restore.

By default Apple uses plain partitions for single drive computers; and Core Storage marries an SSD and HDD as a single LV for computers with both and they call this "Fusion Drive". When the user choose to encrypt, this is handled by Core Storage; the plain partition volume is converted to a Core Storage layout.

I don't know how it works on Windows.

The capabilities of the underlying storage stacks are different, so a great UI for one may not be an acceptable UI for the other.

Sure. I only bring up Windows/OS X as a contra position to the idea it's a good thing to have massive piles of options in an installer. The vast majority of the world is OK with vanilla ice cream, in this context. 

Can we do better, and can we have more than that? Sure. But we should be sensitive to enabling features just because they can be done, rather than because they're good ideas. The examples in my 2nd sentence at top are compulsive. They have no efficacy.

Chris Murphy

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