On Fri, 2012-11-30 at 14:19 +0100, Michael Schwendt wrote:
The good news first: F-18 Beta DVD ISO image can be booted from
harddisk
again, so it seems I will be able to test that installation method this
time without having to research strange/new/complex entries for GRUB and
loading squashfs images from remote locations.
However, I'm stuck because of the new installer GUI not letting me finish
the manual partitioning. =:-/
First of all, it has become a maze to navigate, although that is not the
final problem. For keyboard, timezone, language and basics I've used the
"Done" button. So far so good. Many mouse-clicks and much mouse-pointer
movement, but at least it accepted my changes.
The installer complains about the "installation source" (ISO) without
telling me what's wrong. There's a "Verify" button, which doesn't
seem to
do anything.
This is
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=879142 . It appears
to be basically cosmetic, you can ignore the error.
Partition is what can drive the user mad.
It defaults to automatic partitioning, complaining about not enough free
space. I've searched for a way to tell it that I want to reuse an existing
logical partition. One that has a Rawhide->F18-Alpha on it. Somehow I
needed to click "Continue" to reach an error dialog that again tells me
there is not enough free space and that the installer will help me, so I
tell it I don't need help, I want to partition myself, but I cannot escape
that dialog other than with the "Reclaim space" button. Could be
dangerous, but I take the risk and click it after changing the
partitioning which defaults to "LVM", which should be irrelevant when I
partition myself.
You did everything right, but it sounds like you weren't given enough
confidence in the process. But yes, what you described is exactly the
route into custom partitioning. If you don't check 'I don't need help',
you get the 'guided partitioning' flow where you get a dialog that lets
you delete or shrink existing partitions to free up space for an
autopart install.
It's not quite that it 'defaults' to automatic partitioning, it's that
the checkbox you hit is the 'automatic / custom' delimiter. It sounds
like that wasn't made clear enough for you.
I reach the partitioning screen, where assigning mount points is
everything
other than intuitive compared with old Anaconda. Partition names are not
displayed anywere, just labels, mount points and names of existing installations.
It needs many mouse-clicks to open existing installations (this is a multi-boot
desktop) and reuse mount-points via the "Apply changes" button.
So, the basic design of newUI is to visualize not 'disks with partitions
on them' but 'a computer with operating systems on it'. This is a
change, and it does seem somewhat messy in complex cases, especially
with multiply-mounted partitions. However, Mo and the anaconda devs feel
that for some setups and some users, the 'computer with operating
systems' approach on it is going to be clearer and more usable.
AIUI there've been various concepts kicked around for trying to address
this, but they all feel messy so far.
Again,
so far so good, at least I can make the installer use the LUKS encrypted
/home and a few /mnt/… targets. I also tell it to reformat (!) the Root
ext4 partition, but:
Why the (!)?
It continues to display a yellow warning about not enough free space
for
automatic partitioning. Help! I can revisit the partitioning screen
endlessly without any way to teach it that reformatting means the space
will be available for installation. And why does it still refer to
automatic partitioning, if I tell it that I partition myself?
What am I missing? The begin installation button is greyed out.
As David says, this is a bit unclear, as the custom part screen itself
shouldn't ever say anything about free space for automatic partitioning.
I agree with David that it sounds like, somehow, you left the custom
part screen in a way in which the changes made on it weren't applied.
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | identi.ca: adamwfedora
http://www.happyassassin.net