Silverblue & Kinoite to use separate "var" subvolume by default
by Chris Murphy
Silverblue users have occasionally expressed a desire to snapshot the
"root" subvolume separately from /var so they can rollback "root"
separately from /var content. Since rpm-ostree puts the rpmdb in /usr,
and Btrfs subvolumes have essentially no cost, it's a nice tweak for
these users. So I've put together a self-contained change proposal to
do that.
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/VarSubvol4SilverblueKinoite
I've done quite a few such installations already and the installer has
no issue with it, and systemd fstab generator reliably mounts "var" to
/var early enough that there's trouble there. I consistently see the
journal flush to persistent storage *after* /var has mounted which is
what we need. But if anyone can think of additional liabilities, let
me know.
A possible gotcha I'm not certain about, is if the Btrfs autopart
scheme is modified to add a /var mount point, we need to make sure it
only applies to Silverblue and Kinoite. And only applies to the Btrfs
scheme, not LVM or Standard partitioning schemes. If that's too tricky
in the Fedora 36 time frame, then we'll just punt.
Thanks!
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Chris Murphy
2 years, 1 month
partitioning, Everything ISO
by Chris Murphy
cc: anaconda-devel@
From today's Fedora QA minutes
https://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/fedora-meeting/2022-01-24/fedora-qa.202...
16:20:54 <pboy> I'll test that again, but I'm sure, if you use
everything DVD you get the wrong preconfiguration. We had a thread
about that on server list.
I'm not finding this thread. But Adamw surely knows the history of
Everything ISO better than I do. My fuzzy memory is that it's sort of
a side effect of how images are made and it's kept around as a catch
all. It's the only way to do a netinstall for any of the desktops. The
default package set is for a minimal install, a.k.a. Fedora Custom.
The idea is to make it straightforward to get a minimum bootable
system and then use dnf to build it up from there.
Just for context, "Everything ISO" e.g.
https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/compose/rawhide/Fedora-Rawhide-2022012...
This image defines "automatic" partitioning as btrfs. It's intrinsic
to the image itself what the partitioning defaults to. It's not a
function of the package set, i.e. choosing the Server package set
doesn't get you Server's default partitioning. It's a little
confusing, but it's working as designed, insofar as it has one.
I cc'd Anaconda folks, because I'm not sure exactly where the
"autopart" kickstart command gets defined these days. And also whether
it's worth the effort to make autopart variable based on what edition
or spin is selected in the Everything netinstaller? I'm not sure that
it is.
--
Chris Murphy
2 years, 2 months
deprecate bootloader selection criterion
by Chris Murphy
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_35_Final_Release_Criteria#Bootloade...
"The installer must allow the user to choose which disk the system
bootloader will be installed to, and to choose not to install one at
all. "
The "choose not to install one at all" doesn't really apply to UEFI. I
wonder if we can just drop the whole criterion? (I'm still hopeful
that one day the entirety of bootloader UI in the installer goes
away.)
So what you get is a system without an EFI system partition (or an
existing ESP that isn't used), but all the bootloader stuff is put on
the /boot volume. So it's not going to boot, which makes the
installer's warnings true. The one thing *not* copied for some reason
is the stub grub.cfg. But shim, grub, the real grub.cfg, and BLS
snippets are all there - just on ext4 /boot which the firmware can't
read so the system doesn't boot. It's harmless because the user signed
up for this after all, but it's also kinda pointless.
Reproduce steps:
1. Any that use Anaconda, from any release, but I just used this:
Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-Rawhide-20220119.n.0.iso
2. Boot it, launch installer
3. Installation destination keep all defaults
4. Click blue text at the bottom "Full disk summary and boot loader..."
5. Select the (in my case single) drive, click the "Do not install
bootloader" button
6. Close and install
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Chris Murphy
2 years, 2 months
the possibility to detect /home subvolume if fedora with default partition layout is detected.
by majid hussain
hi,
firstly,
thank you for a lovly installer.
i'm blind and use orca the screen reader to aid me in installing fedora.
too my question
i'm a end user, could what was asked in the subject line be made a
possibility?
usecase, fedora install is completely inoperable and you wish to
currently doo a repair install and you wish to retain your home subvolume.
that is to say.
1.
reinstall fedora lieveing your home subvolume alone and using that
instead of formatting everything.
this would lieve your userdata alone including your .files.
you would need to make the same user account with the same name etc for
this to work.
how i see this in anaconda.
when the installer is launched and you have gone through the language
and keybord layout questions, when it getts to the partition stage and
default /auto partitioning is selected a question could be asked doo you
wish to keep your home partition/volume?
I hope this makes sence.
I would be greatful if you were to considder this.
Majid Hussain
2 years, 2 months