I came across this question on Ask Fedora:
https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/problems-making-dual-boot-fedora-w10/10766
where the person is having trouble getting Fedora Workstation set up for a dual-boot-with-windows-10 environment.
There's a paradox or irony here: this is one of the most complicated things we might ask completely new users to do, yet also, new users just dipping their toes are probably most likely to want the comfort of being able to boot back to their old OS.
Do we have better hand-holding instructions for doing this somewhere that I could point this user to and which we could make more prominent?
This is almost perfect for my situation! But I have been trying to dual boot on my Mac with no luck. It would be great if I can get any pointers to that as well, if any 😊
Thanks Ramya
On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 4:37 PM Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
I came across this question on Ask Fedora:
https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/problems-making-dual-boot-fedora-w10/10766
where the person is having trouble getting Fedora Workstation set up for a dual-boot-with-windows-10 environment.
There's a paradox or irony here: this is one of the most complicated things we might ask completely new users to do, yet also, new users just dipping their toes are probably most likely to want the comfort of being able to boot back to their old OS.
Do we have better hand-holding instructions for doing this somewhere that I could point this user to and which we could make more prominent?
-- Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org Fedora Project Leader _______________________________________________ docs mailing list -- docs@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to docs-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/docs@lists.fedoraproject.org
Wouldn't such a user be better advised to run Fedora in a VM?
On December 4, 2020 5:37:35 PM EST, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
I came across this question on Ask Fedora:
https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/problems-making-dual-boot-fedora-w10/10766
where the person is having trouble getting Fedora Workstation set up for a dual-boot-with-windows-10 environment.
There's a paradox or irony here: this is one of the most complicated things we might ask completely new users to do, yet also, new users just dipping their toes are probably most likely to want the comfort of being able to boot back to their old OS.
Do we have better hand-holding instructions for doing this somewhere that I could point this user to and which we could make more prominent?
-- Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org Fedora Project Leader _______________________________________________ desktop mailing list -- desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to desktop-leave@lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/desktop@lists.fedoraproject.or...
On Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 08:32:13PM -0500, MáirÃn Duffy wrote:
Wouldn't such a user be better advised to run Fedora in a VM?
Maybe? Depends how much they're trying to shift, I guess. Like, if they're going to keep Windows for games, it probably doesn't matter that graphics might not perform as well inside a VM. But if they're trying to see if they could live entirely in a Fedora world, dual booting gives a better test.
I like the suggestion for making this the primary recommendation, though. Something like:
It's easiest to install Fedora Workstation (or another Fedora spin) as the only operating system on your hard drive, completely replacing Windows. However, if you're not quite ready for that kind of commitment, you have two alternatives.
The first is to install Fedora Workstation into a virtual machine in Windows. With this approach, your existing operating system is unchanged, and the Fedora OS runs in a protected environment "inside" it. There are a number of programs which provide virtualization, including Hyper-V on Windows Pro and VirtualBox (a free and open source cross-platform solution). We have instructions for the following virtualization environments:
* Hyper-V (recommended where available) * VirtualBox (recommended) * VMWare Workstation Pro
Installing in a VM is easy, but an operating system running that way does not have full access to your hardware, and you may not get the same level of performance. For this reason, many users choose to dual boot — that is, they divide their hard drive into different parts, devoting some to Windows and some to Fedora Workstation. Doing this requires you to have some basic knowledge of disk partitioning concepts and of boot loaders. Don't worry: we'll try to make it as easy as possible with the following guides:
* Disk partitioning concepts for dual booters * UEFI boot concepts for dual booters * Step-by-step guide for installing Fedora Workstation to dual boot with Microsoft Windows
I would strongly recommend running any official recommendations by the Anaconda team... I know when I worked more closely with them, they preferred very strongly to not recommend multiboot nevermind to newbies. At that time, VM or live media were their recommends for this use case.
And honestly if they want a bare metal test, a newbie really would be best served with a live USB wouldn't they? If they decide its not right for them they can pull it out. And no mucking with partitioning. And VM is best for the ultimate lazy just want to try it with no effort case.
I mean for newbies if they have to learn the intricacies of partitioning with the penalty of losing their running windows system that's really quite a high punishment for learning smtg quite difficult. A very bad foot to start them off on esp if we want to expand our reach to a broader more inclusive audience. Honestly I grew up partitioning using fdisk on the cmdline back in the day and I can't even do it without a great deal of trepidation when real valuable data is on the line. Safely and easily doing that with Windows is very hard to achieve and maintain. I think the best solution would remove the requirement for users to learn abt partitioning and reserve that brain space for learning about Fedora itself and how awesome it is.
I dont know the state of persistent live installs these days - I know it previously has been pretty shaky. If it's better now, then if we could set them up with that it'd be ideal. Maybe we could recommend some nice USB flash drive HW for the task as well.
~m
On Sun, Dec 06, 2020 at 01:17:31PM -0500, MáirÃn Duffy wrote:
I dont know the state of persistent live installs these days - I know it previously has been pretty shaky. If it's better now, then if we could set them up with that it'd be ideal. Maybe we could recommend some nice USB flash drive HW for the task as well.
It's the same is it was, so, yeah, that's my trepidation with that recommendation.
On the other hand, my hesitation with telling people "dual boot is hard" is that, like in the referenced Ask question, people are being told by other distros "setting up dual boot is easy and the best way to get started."
So, if we say "actually, don't dual boot, here's a whole 'nuther thing which may require you to install extra software trust us it'll be even easier", a lot of people are just going to say "never mind, Fedora is making things complicated again", which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place.
On Sun, 6 Dec 2020 at 23:59, Matthew Miller mattdm@fedoraproject.org wrote:
On the other hand, my hesitation with telling people "dual boot is hard" is that, like in the referenced Ask question, people are being told by other distros "setting up dual boot is easy and the best way to get started."
I second this. Other distros actuall advertise dual booting and include automatic tools in their installer to resize a partition and setup the installation.
So, if we say "actually, don't dual boot, here's a whole 'nuther thing which may require you to install extra software trust us it'll be even easier", a lot of people are just going to say "never mind, Fedora is making things complicated again", which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place.
This is from by days in uni when I use to actively evangelise Fedora to fellow students. Most newbies look for easy to use guide for dual booting. The docs on docs.fp.o are too detailed to the point where people have found it completely confusing.
So I used to have a PPT that showed how to dual-boot Fedora, I can share if anyone is interested. It worked for most Windows laptops with EFI.
On the other hand, we need proper sections linking to either using Fedora as a virtual machine or dual booting on getfedora.org, right after a user downloads.
-- Amitosh
So by newbie, you don't mean newbie, you mean has-a-luxury-of-time-to-learn-from-scratch-how-to-partition-hard-drives-and-aware-of-other-distros-and-their-recommended-procedures-and-knows-what-a-distro-is-in-the-first-place?
By newbie I was thinking rather than shuffling the deck chairs on the S.S. Already-Uses-Loonix *and* was born before 1995, actually getting a fresh population to try hopping aboard! Ahoy!
If they can buy a USB stick at a local drugstore, stick it in, download an exe file and install and run it, it's already asking a lot I think of the specific audience I was eyeing (bored and quarantined remote learning students who own one computer and can't F it up or they can't go to school.)
VM would probably be better and lower risk except that gets dicey cuz you dont know what VM software they're using.
Anyway, my misunderstanding! 😜 Although please please consult the installed team before making any multiboot recommendations in an official capacity!
I hear you on the not wanting to make things complicated which is why I am suggested dual boot should be out of the equation.
~m
I know that I have not made many contributions, but as a Fedora user, and someone who loves to encourage others to try Linux, I really believe Matthew Miller has exposed a possible way that Fedora could gain a "win" with a segment of new users. Personally, I have avoided dual booting because of the complexities and possible things that could go wrong. As a result, I have often been running Linux on older "hand-me-down" hardware, because my newer hardware is often used to run Windows for work related programs. If Fedora could come up with a reliable and safe set of instructions and tools for dual booting it would give Fedora a "win" with another new group of possible users. I don't know if I have the hardware or understanding to help out with the documentation and testing, but I love the idea. Any "win" with a possible new group of users, who might be Linux curious, but limited on their hardware options, could help to expand the great community that we find in Fedora already.
---------------------------- | Steve | mowestusa@yahoo.com | ----------------------------
On Sunday, December 6, 2020, 5:27:20 PM EST, MáirÃn Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
So by newbie, you don't mean newbie, you mean has-a-luxury-of-time-to-learn-from-scratch-how-to-partition-hard-drives-and-aware-of-other-distros-and-their-recommended-procedures-and-knows-what-a-distro-is-in-the-first-place?
By newbie I was thinking rather than shuffling the deck chairs on the S.S. Already-Uses-Loonix *and* was born before 1995, actually getting a fresh population to try hopping aboard! Ahoy!
If they can buy a USB stick at a local drugstore, stick it in, download an exe file and install and run it, it's already asking a lot I think of the specific audience I was eyeing (bored and quarantined remote learning students who own one computer and can't F it up or they can't go to school.)
VM would probably be better and lower risk except that gets dicey cuz you dont know what VM software they're using.
Anyway, my misunderstanding! 😜 Although please please consult the installed team before making any multiboot recommendations in an official capacity!
I hear you on the not wanting to make things complicated which is why I am suggested dual boot should be out of the equation.
~m
On Sun, Dec 06, 2020 at 05:26:26PM -0500, MáirÃn Duffy wrote:
So by newbie, you don't mean newbie, you mean has-a-luxury-of-time-to-learn-from-scratch-how-to-partition-hard-drives- and-aware-of-other-distros-and-their-recommended-procedures-and-knows- what-a-distro-is-in-the-first-place?
I'm not sure if this directed to me is to me or what, but: usually people who become aware of Fedora are already aware of Linux generally, and maybe familiar with a certain other option with a larger user community. They learn pretty quickly that "pick a distro" is a first step. They read articles like this one:
https://www.techrepublic.com/google-amp/article/linux-the-7-best-distributio...
... which says:
"Fedora 33 is that Linux distribution that welcomes new users, but also gives them plenty of room to grow and learn. If a user wants to use the desktop and never venture beyond simplicity, Fedora can do that. For those users who eventually get bored and want to explore a bit more, Fedora can do that as well."
... which is awesome, but then that user runs up against the difficulty that is installing, and yeah, unless they're ready to devote a whole machine, partitioning is going to be staring them in the face pretty soon.
By newbie I was thinking rather than shuffling the deck chairs on the S.S. Already-Uses-Loonix *and* was born before 1995, actually getting a fresh population to try hopping aboard! Ahoy!
Sure! That's included in the above as well.
If they can buy a USB stick at a local drugstore, stick it in, download an exe file and install and run it, it's already asking a lot I think of the specific audience I was eyeing (bored and quarantined remote learning students who own one computer and can't F it up or they can't go to school.)
Right, "going to a drugstore" is a lot right now. :)
VM would probably be better and lower risk except that gets dicey cuz you dont know what VM software they're using.
I agree with both of these. It's just not easy either way.
On 12/7/20 11:18 AM, Matthew Miller wrote:
https://www.techrepublic.com/google-amp/article/linux-the-7-best-distributio...
... which says:
"Fedora 33 is that Linux distribution that welcomes new users, but also gives them plenty of room to grow and learn. If a user wants to use the desktop and never venture beyond simplicity, Fedora can do that. For those users who eventually get bored and want to explore a bit more, Fedora can do that as well."... which is awesome, but then that user runs up against the difficulty that is installing, and yeah, unless they're ready to devote a whole machine, partitioning is going to be staring them in the face pretty soon.
So who does this ^ article mean when they say "new users" - because if installation is the big hurdle (and it's not just for Fedora), why is there no mention of installing how to / partitioning how to in this article?
If I google (well, duckduckgo) for "how to try linux" I get this up top: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2018/09/18/how-to-safely-try-lin...
It suggests using liveUSB.
Next item down, https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/how-install-and-try-linux-absolutel...
This gives instructions to order Xubuntu preinstalled on a 32gb usb stick
Next one down: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2918397/how-to-get-started-with-linux-a-begi...
These instructions walk through how to pick a distro, install it to USB or DVD (either live or as an external USB drive install), and how to install to VM.
Next down: https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/easy-ways-for-windows-users-...
VirtualBox, Windows built in Linux subsystem, USB flash drive are the 3 easy ways.
Last one I'll mention: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/try-ubuntu-before-you-install#1-getting-started
Walks through doing a live USB or DVD install.
None of these hits for "how to try linux" mention partitioning a hard drive or dual boot. It's just not an option apparently that tech journalists who authored these top hits decided to cover.
I think it would really help to be much clearer about what is meant by "new user" or "newbie" here. This is not a Fedora-specific problem, every distro has this problem. If "newbie" means "new to Fedora, not necessarily Linux" then we are no different than any other distro. If "newbie" means "new to Linux, thinking about trying Fedora" then maybe we should look at the distros that type of newbie is going for and look at how they are handling that path. Maybe mentioning the Lenovo pre-installs somewhere on our website would be nice for that audience? But the majority of folks, regardless of distro, have this hurdle and I don't see dual boot coming up when I search for guides aimed at what I think is the correct audience here so I don't understand why that's what we're looking to as the solution?
~m
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 01:24:22PM -0500, MáirÃn Duffy wrote:
So who does this ^ article mean when they say "new users" - because if installation is the big hurdle (and it's not just for Fedora), why is there no mention of installing how to / partitioning how to in this article?
Well, I guess I'm coming at this from the other direction. I see non-theoretical new Fedora users hitting a problem.
nice for that audience? But the majority of folks, regardless of distro, have this hurdle and I don't see dual boot coming up when I search for guides aimed at what I think is the correct audience here so I don't understand why that's what we're looking to as the solution?
Maybe you're right and we're not actually worse than other distros in this area. I still see it as something we can improve. We could try to do some more research on the users who are coming in organically like the ones I'm seeing, or we could try to develop guides for different personas.
On 12/7/20 1:47 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 01:24:22PM -0500, MáirÃn Duffy wrote:
So who does this ^ article mean when they say "new users" - because if installation is the big hurdle (and it's not just for Fedora), why is there no mention of installing how to / partitioning how to in this article?
Well, I guess I'm coming at this from the other direction. I see non-theoretical new Fedora users hitting a problem.
I get that, but "dual-boot" is a solution, not a problem. (Well, it's a problem when you accidentally wipe out your ability to boot Windows or worse lol, but generally it's not the problem-to-solve here.)
Like, if you step back and view "dual-boot" as a solution, what problem could it possibly be solving? Some ideas:
1. I only own one computer and I want to run more than one OS. Is this really a problem? Does someone who owns one computer not have access to flash drives, external HDDs, or (completely free and functional) VM software? Especially considering the latter, absolutely not, they do have access to VM software. So let's go another step, why would a VM not solve the problem?
2. I only own one computer, I want to run more than one OS, and both OSes *must* be baremetal. OK. I need help with the latter half. I could see, some kind of hand-wavy "I'm a gamer and my graphics hardware / gamery stuff only works best baremetal" but I could not see that for the Linux side, only the Windows side, meaning, put a Linux VM on your Windows OS, there's no problem. So is there a problem that demands a solution that must OSes be baremetal because if it exists I don't know what it is nor how common it is?
3. I own a few computers, but I am a tech journalist and I need to install multiple distros in a multiboot situation so I can review them. I also kind of don't understand how VM doesn't solve this case. It's a case that was brought up the last time we had a grand multi-boot discussion (in the context of installer UX.)
So I don't actually understand the problem dual-boot really solves exclusive to other potential solutions here, and I am totally open to not knowing / understanding it or missing it so let me know if I am missing it.
Anyway, to reframe things towards the problem instead of the solution first:
The problem here is enabling folks to try Fedora without blowing away another OS, isn't it? Dual-boot is a pretty poor solution to this if you care about the other OS and are not experienced with partitioning (it is also a poor experience if you *are* experienced with partitioning.)
I suspect the right / best solution is to evaluate where our livemedia story is, upgrade the bits that need upgrading to make it robust (as I think Neal mentioned elsewhere in the thread), and make the try story as easy as, "stick a usb flash drive of (>= whatever size) into your computer and run this app", and the baremetal install story have an actual narrative / plan of sorts that can be filled in with details as the user prefers. But just a sketch of an outline.
So for example, if ACT I of the story starts out, "Hey, I use Windows and I heard about this Linux thing and I want to try it":
Pre-req: Admin to install app on Windows system, USB stick (>= $size) that can be wiped
STEP 1: Download $liveusbcreator for Windows _here_ and install on your system. STEP 2: Stick USB stick in your system and install Fedora to it using $liveusbcreator. STEP 3: Try Fedora out for a little bit, noting you'll lose data on boot unless you save it to cloud drives (which you can hook up using GOA for example.) (unless we fix persistent partitions of course)
Then Act II, which is what you seem most concerned about is, "Hey, I tried Fedora out and I think I'm ready to take the next step and make it my main thing."
The parts of the narrative that need to be defined here: - Am I keeping my Windows system intact and have (or plan to have) access to another system (another laptop, workstation, raspberry pi, whatever) to run Fedora exclusively on? - Do I have the ability to get a new fresh hard drive and install it into the chassis of my system or plug in externally and install to that? - Am I OK backing my data up / ghosting my Windows harddisk maybe, and wiping the system from fresh to install Fedora? - Do I need to work with a single hard drive / multiboot situation?
The best experience is always installing on a fresh, unencumbered disk, isn't it? It's also the easiest for the end user in terms of minimizing stress, mental load, risk. So if we could lay out a plan for them based on their tolerance for the top 3 options above -
- Use Windows 10 System Image to make a copy of the windows system: https://www.windowscentral.com/how-make-full-backup-windows-10 - Securely back up the system image to a cloud service - Installing Fedora to drive wiping the Windows install - Installing the windows image to a VM in Fedora - Wiping Fedora and reinstalling Windows from the image baremetal
Kind of to give them ideas on the different strategies they could follow with some instructions or pointers on how to do each, so they even know what is possible, and giving some guidance as to what we recommend for the best experience / best support. I think multi-boot would fall pretty low on that list. It's fragile I think for a lot of reasons in a lot of ways.
Maybe you're right and we're not actually worse than other distros in this area. I still see it as something we can improve. We could try to do some more research on the users who are coming in organically like the ones I'm seeing, or we could try to develop guides for different personas.
I would like to know where the idea for dual boot came from. It's a common thing right for someone to come in asking for help doing a $solution and you have to get everyone to step back to define the $problem first, then direct towards the right $solution. If that makes sense.
Also sorry for the WALLSOFTEXT on all of this, it's just something I've thought a lot about in the past from all of the installer UX work I've been involved with and I gathered a lot of info / data on it already.
~m
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 02:18:43PM -0500, MáirÃn Duffy wrote:
I get that, but "dual-boot" is a solution, not a problem. (Well, it's a problem when you accidentally wipe out your ability to boot Windows or worse lol, but generally it's not the problem-to-solve here.)
Ha! That's true. However, it's also the solution people are coming in with. So there's a built-in extra "expense" in telling them "well, actually, do a different thing". It doesn't mean we can't, it's just an additional hurdle.
- I only own one computer and I want to run more than one OS. Is
this really a problem? Does someone who owns one computer not have access to flash drives, external HDDs, or (completely free and functional) VM software? Especially considering the latter, absolutely not, they do have access to VM software. So let's go another step, why would a VM not solve the problem?
Flash drives aren't a great experience because they're slow (and cheap ones not really robust for constant live use even if we make that work better). External hard drives are a pain with a laptop. Plus installing on a second device still requires _some_ dual-boot understanding.
So, VMs. There the problem is that AIUI, only Windows Pro has built-in virtualization tools. As far as I know, VirtualBox is the only free and open source option. (Maybe even the only free-as-in-cost option too. I don't think VMWare is in this market anymore.) But, here's the hard part: if I had to pick which is harder for a non-techny person to pick up, _other than_ "a mistake can destroy all of your data", I would say VirtualBox is actually harder.
But that's a pretty big "other than", of course.
- I only own one computer, I want to run more than one OS, and both
OSes *must* be baremetal. OK. I need help with the latter half. I could see, some kind of hand-wavy "I'm a gamer and my graphics hardware / gamery stuff only works best baremetal" but I could not see that for the Linux side, only the Windows side, meaning, put a Linux VM on your Windows OS, there's no problem. So is there a problem that demands a solution that must OSes be baremetal because if it exists I don't know what it is nor how common it is?
Well, on the gamer side, someone might be testing to see if Linux is adequade to ditch Windows for gaming entirely. Another GPU-related usecase might be Cuda/GPGPU programming.
I've got a not-quite-fleshed out thought here too which I'll try to articulate... a VM is perfectly fine for kicking the tires, and good for two other big use cases: running some specific application that isn't available natively (I used to run Quicken in a VM, for example), or to provide a development environment. It's not typical to make your daily environment (Qubes users aside!) be the "inside" machine. So it's my unsubstantiated feeling that someone who has Fedora Workstation in a VM is less likely to become a more heavy user than someone who has it on metal.
That's possibly something we could research, actually. Maybe I'm all wrong — or maybe the increased ease / decreased risk would make it accessible to so many more users that it's still a net win (assuming we could overcome VirtualBox-difficulty issues).
- I own a few computers, but I am a tech journalist and I need to
install multiple distros in a multiboot situation so I can review them. I also kind of don't understand how VM doesn't solve this case. It's a case that was brought up the last time we had a grand multi-boot discussion (in the context of installer UX.)
Journalists like to talk about performance, and for that, they want bare metal. Honestly though, I'm not super concerned about this case. Those journalists can either figure it out, or dedicate a machine, or just do several full reinstalls.
I suspect the right / best solution is to evaluate where our livemedia story is, upgrade the bits that need upgrading to make it robust (as I think Neal mentioned elsewhere in the thread), and make the try story as easy as, "stick a usb flash drive of (>= whatever size) into your computer and run this app", and the baremetal install story have an actual narrative / plan of sorts that can be filled in with details as the user prefers. But just a sketch of an outline.
If we want to go the USB flash drive route, in addition to software improvements, we'll need to make it clear that the minimum for a good experience is a higher-quality USB 3 drive (in a USB 3 port).
[...]
The best experience is always installing on a fresh, unencumbered disk, isn't it? It's also the easiest for the end user in terms of minimizing stress, mental load, risk. So if we could lay out a plan for them based on their tolerance for the top 3 options above -
Yes, absolutely.
[...]
I would like to know where the idea for dual boot came from. It's a common thing right for someone to come in asking for help doing a $solution and you have to get everyone to step back to define the $problem first, then direct towards the right $solution. If that makes sense.
Yeah, wherever it came from, it's an endemic meme at this point. :-/
Also sorry for the WALLSOFTEXT on all of this, it's just something I've thought a lot about in the past from all of the installer UX work I've been involved with and I gathered a lot of info / data on it already.
No apology needed! I appreciate the thoughts.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 11:17 AM MáirÃn Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
I dont know the state of persistent live installs these days - I know it previously has been pretty shaky. If it's better now, then if we could set them up with that it'd be ideal. Maybe we could recommend some nice USB flash drive HW for the task as well.
It's unchanged. There is no GUI tool.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 11:17 AM MáirÃn Duffy duffy@fedoraproject.org wrote:
I would strongly recommend running any official recommendations by the Anaconda team... I know when I worked more closely with them, they preferred very strongly to not recommend multiboot nevermind to newbies.
Yep, it's a good point. I'm reminded they'd prefer to remove this functionality from the automatic path.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/Anaconda_Reclaim_Disk_Space
That change ran up against the unpopular fact that using Custom UI is much more complicated to do the same task. The change was withdrawn. But nevertheless, the trial balloon has been raised.
Also, the installer doesn't resize LVM, nor Btrfs, nor macOS's APFS. It shrinks only NTFS and ext4 on plain partitions. That means there's already something of an inconsistency in the UX, and the documentation. The user needs to know what they're starting out with, to learn whether or not the Fedora installer is really a "one stop shop" that can do the installation. Or if they need to use some other tool first.
On recent Macs with T2 security chips acting as the controller for the NVMe drive, and Secure Boot, and sip - dual boot really has become a pain.
-- Chris Murphy
-
Amitosh Swain -
Chris Murphy -
Matthew Miller -
mowestusa -
MáirÃn Duffy -
Ramya Parimi