On 02/19/2014 10:59 PM, Chris Murphy wrote:
On Feb 19, 2014, at 6:07 PM, Adam Williamson <awilliam(a)redhat.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2014-02-19 at 16:55 -0700, Chris Murphy wrote:
>
>> If the bar is going to be raised,
>
> Just as a sidebar, I'm not sure you're entirely on track with this
> assessment - I haven't quite read the same 'undertone' into the .next
> discussions.
I don't have a way to qualify the magnitude of the raising. So whether it's
static or is raised, and if raised then by how much, is something sufficiently open ended
right now that it needs to be made more clear. Or I need remedial attention.
>
>> then my instinct is to be even more aggressive with how the installer
>> should only present recommended or at least sane outcomes to users. It
>> probably shouldn't ever crash.
>
<snip for clarity>
>
>> We probably should have *one* file system option for Guided
>> partitioning, which is the recommended layout, and the user gets to
>> choose a couple of variations: encryption, and a way to reuse an
>> existing /home.
>
> Based on the last discussion on anaconda-devel, I'm not sure we can get
> down to one, but I think there is some leeway for cutting it down from
> four. This definitely needs to be proposed to the anaconda devs, though.
> I would be in favor of at least cutting it down from the current set.
I think there's inherent value in the project saying "this is the layout we
recommend" wen it comes to the guided path. It's not much of a guide to have four
massively different partition schemes: one of which was a surprising new comer that
didn't work at all up until beta and then imploded at the last second before ship. One
of which at the time was still labeled experimental in the kernel, but that status
wasn't revealed to the user, they had to go read tea leaves or visit the water cooler
in the 5th floor stair well to know that. So I'd push for one and maybe we get two.
*shrug* I'm well aware that suggesting greater conservatism on the guided path very
well might mean Btrfs gets booted, even though I'd pick it as easier to learn and
manage than LVM.
>
>> So really, I'm fairly convinced at this point that what's needed is
>> feature chop, it's just a matter of how much which depends on what
>> quality level expectations the WGs decide upon.
>
> What's your plan for moving forward with this?
No plan. But I question whether WG members really understand the state of the installer:
how many outcomes it enables; how many QA resources go into testing it as a percentage of
all testing; and yet despite that, as a percentage of outcomes, how QA likely isn't
testing even a majority of Manual partitioning outcomes; and the perception of Fedora
users expecting that these outcomes have at least been attempted by QA. I think
there's a disconnect. And I'm happy to be totally wrong about that, but when I
look at other installers, I can't help but think they're successful not because of
what they can do, but what they refuse to do. And yeah, we aren't going to ever have
an installer that only produces 5 or 6 outcomes, it'll probably always be several
dozen at a minimum. But several dozen right now would be an f'n godsend compared to
what we've got.
So I think the factual information of the installer state of affair, user perception and
WG expectations for the installer need better qualification.
Chris Murphy
I've been pondering this, and I have an idea that I borrowed from the
enemy (M$). When you install anything in Windows land - including the
OS, IIRC - you are given a choice: default install, or custom.
Why can't we set anaconda up this way, say, at the initial boot where
you're given the choice to check the media or install. Set one more
option there, let the options be:
Install Fedora to this system (default, guided installation)
Install Fedora to this system (custom, manual selection *WARNING - AT
YOUR OWN RISK*)
Check this media and install Fedora to this system (default, guided
installation).
Then in the "easy" path, the user is given two choices - standard
partitions or LVM (or btrfs if Chris gets his way). We test these as the
"#1 critical must work" selections. Anything in the manual path is
either in between or bonus.
Dan
--
Dan Mossor
Systems Engineer at Large
Fedora QA Team Volunteer FAS: dmossor IRC: danofsatx
San Antonio, Texas, USA