4:37 p.m.
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(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
2:32 p.m.
I think we need more than just better instructions here.
If you use automatic partitioning, there is also a "leap of faith" step
where you have to hope that the installer does the right thing, but without
any way of verifying it.
If you don't use automatic partitioning, it is because you already know
enough to get past this stage.
In my opinion the most ideal scenario here would be a Windows based
pre-installer - it runs the necessary checks that Fedora can be installed,
sets up partitions and then reboot to finish installation.
5:19 p.m.
On Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 08:32:28PM +0000, Naheem Zaffar wrote:
I think we need more than just better instructions here.
If you use automatic partitioning, there is also a "leap of faith" step
where you have to hope that the installer does the right thing, but without
any way of verifying it.
If you don't use automatic partitioning, it is because you already know
enough to get past this stage.
Serious question since I don't dual boot -- can the automatic partitioning
handle the Windows 10 dual boot situation? Should I have just told the user
to use that?
In my opinion the most ideal scenario here would be a Windows based
pre-installer - it runs the necessary checks that Fedora can be installed,
sets up partitions and then reboot to finish installation.
Sounds interesting -- how would this help?
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
9:30 p.m.
On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 6:19 PM Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 08:32:28PM +0000, Naheem Zaffar wrote:
> I think we need more than just better instructions here.
>
> If you use automatic partitioning, there is also a "leap of faith" step
> where you have to hope that the installer does the right thing, but without
> any way of verifying it.
>
> If you don't use automatic partitioning, it is because you already know
> enough to get past this stage.
Serious question since I don't dual boot -- can the automatic partitioning
handle the Windows 10 dual boot situation? Should I have just told the user
to use that?
It is supposed to work, but I don't know if it has been actively
tested in the past few years.
> In my opinion the most ideal scenario here would be a Windows based
> pre-installer - it runs the necessary checks that Fedora can be installed,
> sets up partitions and then reboot to finish installation.
Sounds interesting -- how would this help?
It would probably be something like how Apple's Boot Camp orchestrates
preparing to install Windows alongside macOS. A Windows/Mac app that
would guide users through this could also use a disk image we prepare,
and then grow it to fill the space. Since we use Btrfs now, we can
drastically simplify all this orchestration since we only work with
one real partition, and manage everything else internally with Btrfs
subvolume orchestration from the Linux side.
That would even take Anaconda out of the picture. :)
--
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!
10:28 p.m.
On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 4:19 PM Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 08:32:28PM +0000, Naheem Zaffar wrote:
> I think we need more than just better instructions here.
>
> If you use automatic partitioning, there is also a "leap of faith" step
> where you have to hope that the installer does the right thing, but without
> any way of verifying it.
>
> If you don't use automatic partitioning, it is because you already know
> enough to get past this stage.
Serious question since I don't dual boot -- can the automatic partitioning
handle the Windows 10 dual boot situation? Should I have just told the user
to use that?
It does handle it including shrinking the Windows primary volume
(NTFS), and reusing the existing ESP.
> In my opinion the most ideal scenario here would be a Windows
based
> pre-installer - it runs the necessary checks that Fedora can be installed,
> sets up partitions and then reboot to finish installation.
Sounds interesting -- how would this help?
It'd make shrink Windows' problem rather than Anaconda's. It does do
an online shrink, creates unallocated space which Anaconda sees as
"free space" to just install to without bringing up the Automatic UI's
"reclaim space" dialog.
The reclaim space dialog kinda depends on the user choosing the
correct partition to shrink. It should be obvious which one it is (the
big one). This UI is somewhat more intuitive, with a slider for
choosing the shrink amount/ratio. The Windows UI is a wizard style
interface and presents a bunch of numbers and jargon that's not
entirely obvious whether I'm specifying size for the unallocated space
(yes, it is) or the Windows partition.
In about 10 years, I can recall one bug, which haha - I ran into. And
it did break the file system. I forget if it was repairable, mainly
because it was an expendable test subject.
There is a release criterion for dual boot installation of Windows. It
has to work for both automatic and custom partitioning UIs, including
successfully shrinking. There's also a test case for it. I don't know
if it's tested in openqa though.
--
Chris Murphy
11:20 a.m.
On Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 09:28:23PM -0700, Chris Murphy wrote:
> > sets up partitions and then reboot to finish installation.
> Sounds interesting -- how would this help?
It'd make shrink Windows' problem rather than Anaconda's. It does do
an online shrink, creates unallocated space which Anaconda sees as
"free space" to just install to without bringing up the Automatic UI's
"reclaim space" dialog.
Well, "Window's problem", or "Fedora's Windows-based application
instead of
Anaconda"'s problem?
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
1:18 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 10:20 AM Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 09:28:23PM -0700, Chris Murphy wrote:
> > > sets up partitions and then reboot to finish installation.
> > Sounds interesting -- how would this help?
> It'd make shrink Windows' problem rather than Anaconda's. It does do
> an online shrink, creates unallocated space which Anaconda sees as
> "free space" to just install to without bringing up the Automatic
UI's
> "reclaim space" dialog.
Well, "Window's problem", or "Fedora's Windows-based application
instead of
Anaconda"'s problem?
Sorry, I'm referring to their clunky wizard. Not a new app that runs on Windows.
Screenshot of Windows shrink wizard
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JIpz7xk_zqO1SUkdFV-Dgu0sx4Ta8WGn/view?us...
The single field "enter the amount of space to shrink" is a reference
to "the reduction amount", i.e. this is the amount that will be made
available to Fedora.
--
Chris Murphy
12:27 a.m.
On Sat, 5 Dec 2020 at 23:19, Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
wrote:
On Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 08:32:28PM +0000, Naheem Zaffar wrote:
> I think we need more than just better instructions here.
>
> If you use automatic partitioning, there is also a "leap of faith" step
> where you have to hope that the installer does the right thing, but
without
> any way of verifying it.
>
> If you don't use automatic partitioning, it is because you already know
> enough to get past this stage.
Serious question since I don't dual boot -- can the automatic partitioning
handle the Windows 10 dual boot situation? Should I have just told the user
to use that?
I don't know because I have not done this in a long time. I had issues with
needing to reclaim space a few years ago where I needed to do manual
partitioning and since then as I know the manual process I have not had to
risk taking the "leap of faith" that everything will be done correctly.
(This is ancient history, but I remember Fedora Core 2 destroying dual boot
setups. After running into that and recovering from it eventually, I
avoided Fedora until the next release, even though I had learnt how to now
fix the dual boot issues.)
Trust but verify seems like a good idea where there is not only potential
for dataloss, but we have new users who may have no prior experience of
Linux.
I would use it if there was a verify step, but without that I dont know if
Anaconda has chosen the right steps (though I remember having issues)
> In my opinion the most ideal scenario here would be a Windows based
> pre-installer - it runs the necessary checks that Fedora can be
installed,
> sets up partitions and then reboot to finish installation.
Sounds interesting -- how would this help?
Chris and Neal have outlined options, but the biggest step would be one
where the user (who potentially has never installed linux before) is no
longer having to take a blind leap of faith. If the process is properly
laid out, enough information can be provided through the process to comfort
the user through the installation process.
1:06 a.m.
On 12/6/20 9:27 AM, Naheem Zaffar wrote:
I don't know because I have not done this in a long time. I had issues
with needing to reclaim space a few years ago where I needed to do
manual partitioning and since then as I know the manual process I have
not had to risk taking the "leap of faith" that everything will be done
correctly.
(This is ancient history, but I remember Fedora Core 2 destroying dual
boot setups. After running into that and recovering from it eventually,
I avoided Fedora until the next release, even though I had learnt how to
now fix the dual boot issues.)
Trust but verify seems like a good idea where there is not only
potential for dataloss, but we have new users who may have no prior
experience of Linux.
I would use it if there was a verify step, but without that I dont know
if Anaconda has chosen the right steps (though I remember having issues)
> In my opinion the most ideal scenario here would be a Windows based
> pre-installer - it runs the necessary checks that Fedora can be
installed,
> sets up partitions and then reboot to finish installation.
Sounds interesting -- how would this help?
Chris and Neal have outlined options, but the biggest step would be one
where the user (who potentially has never installed linux before) is no
longer having to take a blind leap of faith. If the process is properly
laid out, enough information can be provided through the process to
comfort the user through the installation process.
This can be complicated because computers differ in particular Windows
versions and UEFI/BIOS options. Ubuntu has a helpful guide:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot
I think Ubuntu has an option to install alongside Windows. Maybe this
could be something that could be added to the Fedora installer?
One of the main pain points is secure boot[1] - which typically needs to
be disabled.
An online guide for Fedora 32[2].
One starting point might be to work with computer manufacturers that are
already offering systems with Fedora installed to also offer dual boot
systems.
[1] https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Secureboot
[2]
https://www.techotopia.com/index.php/Installing_Fedora_Linux_on_a_Windows...
1:08 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 12:06 AM Benson Muite <benson_muite(a)emailplus.org> wrote:
This can be complicated because computers differ in particular Windows
versions and UEFI/BIOS options. Ubuntu has a helpful guide:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot
I think Ubuntu has an option to install alongside Windows. Maybe this
could be something that could be added to the Fedora installer?
Users shouldn't be bothered with bootloader related issues. I've got a
long standing position that we should rip out *all* bootloader related
things in GUI installers. Neither Custom, nor Advanced Custom, nor
secret doorways should expose any of this stuff.
One of the main pain points is secure boot[1] - which typically needs
to
be disabled.
I'm not sure what this is referring to. The only exception I'm aware
of is the use of the Nvidia proprietary driver. The experience needs a
commitment to do better on behalf of the user.
https://pagure.io/fedora-workstation/issue/155
--
Chris Murphy
12:51 p.m.
On Sat, Dec 5, 2020 at 11:27 PM Naheem Zaffar <naheemzaffar(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Trust but verify seems like a good idea where there is not only
potential for dataloss, but we have new users who may have no prior experience of Linux.
I would use it if there was a verify step, but without that I dont know if Anaconda has
chosen the right steps (though I remember having issues)
If the user has no prior experience, and if we can't assume they have
a way of understanding esoteric partitioning details, what does a
verify step look like? What's missing from the current UI?
Screenshot of reclaim space, with Windows primary volume selected, and
shrink indicated.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Aa-dbxbmQTWs4bn-E2tAxIgg2B3VxNaR/view?us...
--
Chris Murphy
7:32 p.m.
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(a)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(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
_______________________________________________
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11:11 a.m.
On Sat, Dec 05, 2020 at 08:32:13PM -0500, Máirín 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
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
12:17 p.m.
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
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
12:29 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 06, 2020 at 01:17:31PM -0500, Máirín 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.
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
12:45 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 1:29 PM Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On Sun, Dec 06, 2020 at 01:17:31PM -0500, Máirín 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.
It has improved a lot in dracut upstream. However, none of the Fedora
tools have been adjusted to use the newer overlayfs based persistence
mechanism in dracut now. So we still use the legacy method that breaks
pretty easily.
There's also no support in Fedora Media Writer to properly set this up
for users at all, which makes it a lot less accessible in the first
place.
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.
This is absolutely correct. There's no reason we can't make this
better from our side, other than we haven't really focused on it for
the past decade.
--
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!
4:26 p.m.
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
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
2:39 a.m.
Hello,
Although I generally agree with the idea that "newbies" should be helped
with installations of Fedora, possibly a dual boot with Windows, I believe
that the way is through special newbie documentation (something like
Welcome to Fedora Docs) where the most important will be correctly
described with possible consequences, so that those people can make a
proper judgement made on what they know.
Live Fedora is much slower than the regular system, so the overall first
experience is not very good, especially if you are used to fast running
Windows. Then the first idea is "OMG, that is slow. Why shall I even
bother?" -> you need documentation to explain.
VMs are nothing easy for that kind of newbies, that Máirín suggested above
... ergo you need some documentation to explain.
Even youtube tutorials could be nice.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 11:28 PM Máirín Duffy <duffy(a)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
--
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my
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FEDORA QE, RHCE
Red Hat
<https://www.redhat.com>
Purkyňova 115
612 45 Brno - Královo Pole
lruzicka(a)redhat.com
TRIED AND PERSONALLY TESTED, ERGO TRUSTED. <https://redhat.com/trusted>
10:18 a.m.
On Sun, Dec 06, 2020 at 05:26:26PM -0500, Máirín 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-distribu...
... 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.
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
12:24 p.m.
On 12/7/20 11:18 AM, Matthew Miller wrote:
https://www.techrepublic.com/google-amp/article/linux-the-7-best-distribu...
... 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-...
It suggests using liveUSB.
Next item down,
https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/how-install-and-try-linux-absolu...
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-b...
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-use...
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
12:47 p.m.
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 01:24:22PM -0500, Máirín 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.
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
1:18 p.m.
On 12/7/20 1:47 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 01:24:22PM -0500, Máirín 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
1:55 p.m.
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 02:18:43PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
On 12/7/20 1:47 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
Like, if you step back and view "dual-boot" as a solution, what problem
could it possibly be solving? Some ideas:
4. I just bought a laptop. It came with Windows. I don't want to run
Windows ever because it is not Free Software, unless I have no
choice to perform a specific task such as updating firmware or
configuring some new piece of hardware I just bought (e.g. Gaming
Mouse), or to run some diagnostics software to prove that there is
a hardware problem that requires warranty service.
1:58 p.m.
Hi Chuck,
On 12/7/20 2:55 PM, Chuck Anderson wrote:
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 02:18:43PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> On 12/7/20 1:47 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
> Like, if you step back and view "dual-boot" as a solution, what problem
> could it possibly be solving? Some ideas:
4. I just bought a laptop. It came with Windows. I don't want to run
Windows ever because it is not Free Software, unless I have no
choice to perform a specific task such as updating firmware or
configuring some new piece of hardware I just bought (e.g. Gaming
Mouse), or to run some diagnostics software to prove that there is
a hardware problem that requires warranty service.
_______________________________________________
If you were to wipe windows and
install it on a VM running in Linux,
could you not use Windows for the same tasks?
(I've used my Win10 VM to do HW firmware updates and to operate a Cricut
machine, and am just not aware of other tasks like these that require
bare metal?)
If the problem is that your Windows license didn't include a copy of the
Windows installer, that's a different problem entirely, isn't it?
~m
8:35 a.m.
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 02:58:48PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Hi Chuck,
On 12/7/20 2:55 PM, Chuck Anderson wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 02:18:43PM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
>> On 12/7/20 1:47 PM, Matthew Miller wrote:
>> Like, if you step back and view "dual-boot" as a solution, what
problem
>> could it possibly be solving? Some ideas:
> 4. I just bought a laptop. It came with Windows. I don't want to run
> Windows ever because it is not Free Software, unless I have no
> choice to perform a specific task such as updating firmware or
> configuring some new piece of hardware I just bought (e.g. Gaming
> Mouse), or to run some diagnostics software to prove that there is
> a hardware problem that requires warranty service.
> _______________________________________________
If you were to wipe windows and install it on a VM running in Linux,
could you not use Windows for the same tasks?
(I've used my Win10 VM to do HW firmware updates and to operate a Cricut
machine, and am just not aware of other tasks like these that require
bare metal?)
I wasn't aware you could do BIOS or firmware updates from a VM. With
USB passthru, I guess there is some hardware that can be operated or
configured from a VM. However, it is much harder to "swap" the
pre-installed copy of Windows to become a VM than it is to configure
dual-boot.
Also, a VM cannot be used to diagnose hardware problems.
If the problem is that your Windows license didn't include a copy
of the
Windows installer, that's a different problem entirely, isn't it?
I suppose, but that is not in my control. Well, strictly speaking I
could go out of my way to buy a laptop without Windows pre-installed,
then purchase a separate retail copy of Windows, but that has a higher
barrier to entry.
8:54 a.m.
Hi Chuck,
On 12/8/20 9:35 AM, Chuck Anderson wrote:
I wasn't aware you could do BIOS or firmware updates from a VM.
With
USB passthru, I guess there is some hardware that can be operated or
configured from a VM. However, it is much harder to "swap" the
pre-installed copy of Windows to become a VM than it is to configure
dual-boot.
It depends what firmware you're looking to update. I have
definitely,
without any stress at all, done firmware updates for various external
hardware (high-end cameras, scanners, cricut, etc) through the USB
passthru function of GNOME Boxes.
For the firmware and BIOS of my laptop itself... I always use Lenovo
hardware, generally I'd crack the files open using Windows and IIRC set
up a boot disk to install them. No baremetal Windows needed. That's no
longer necessary now because of the Linux Vendor Firmware Service, I can
update the firmware now easy as any system package update.
If you really, really needed windows bare metal for such an occasional
usage pattern though, wouldn't a Windows Live Media setup be better?
Also, a VM cannot be used to diagnose hardware problems.
I'm not sure what hardware problems couldn't be diagnosed in a native
Linux OS, but certainly Windows Live Media can be useful here as well.
> If the problem is that your Windows license didn't include a
copy of the
> Windows installer, that's a different problem entirely, isn't it?
I suppose, but that is not in my control. Well, strictly speaking I
could go out of my way to buy a laptop without Windows pre-installed,
then purchase a separate retail copy of Windows, but that has a higher
barrier to entry.
Doesn't cost you anything if you have a valid preinstall
license, see
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/
This all seems to be a (dated?) edge case to me?? 🤷
~m
9:48 a.m.
On Tue, Dec 08, 2020 at 09:54:53AM -0500, Máirín Duffy wrote:
Hi Chuck,
On 12/8/20 9:35 AM, Chuck Anderson wrote:
> I wasn't aware you could do BIOS or firmware updates from a VM. With
> USB passthru, I guess there is some hardware that can be operated or
> configured from a VM. However, it is much harder to "swap" the
> pre-installed copy of Windows to become a VM than it is to configure
> dual-boot.
It depends what firmware you're looking to update. I have definitely,
without any stress at all, done firmware updates for various external
hardware (high-end cameras, scanners, cricut, etc) through the USB
passthru function of GNOME Boxes.
For the firmware and BIOS of my laptop itself... I always use Lenovo
hardware, generally I'd crack the files open using Windows and IIRC set
up a boot disk to install them. No baremetal Windows needed. That's no
longer necessary now because of the Linux Vendor Firmware Service, I can
update the firmware now easy as any system package update.
If you really, really needed windows bare metal for such an occasional
usage pattern though, wouldn't a Windows Live Media setup be better?
> Also, a VM cannot be used to diagnose hardware problems.
I'm not sure what hardware problems couldn't be diagnosed in a native
Linux OS, but certainly Windows Live Media can be useful here as well.
>> If the problem is that your Windows license didn't include a copy of the
>> Windows installer, that's a different problem entirely, isn't it?
> I suppose, but that is not in my control. Well, strictly speaking I
> could go out of my way to buy a laptop without Windows pre-installed,
> then purchase a separate retail copy of Windows, but that has a higher
> barrier to entry.
Doesn't cost you anything if you have a valid preinstall license, see
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/
This all seems to be a (dated?) edge case to me?? 🤷
Okay. I guess I'm out of touch with modern Windows possibilities. :)
2:47 a.m.
On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 7:55 AM Máirín Duffy <duffy(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
If you really, really needed windows bare metal for such an occasional
usage pattern though, wouldn't a Windows Live Media setup be better?
There really isn't such a thing for Windows or macOS. Full
installations have a recovery environment but they don't allow running
arbitrary programs.
>> If the problem is that your Windows license didn't
include a copy of the
>> Windows installer, that's a different problem entirely, isn't it?
> I suppose, but that is not in my control. Well, strictly speaking I
> could go out of my way to buy a laptop without Windows pre-installed,
> then purchase a separate retail copy of Windows, but that has a higher
> barrier to entry.
Doesn't cost you anything if you have a valid preinstall license, see
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/
This all seems to be a (dated?) edge case to me?? 🤷
Yep and even if you don't have a license it'll work with a few
limitations and nags.
And on UEFI systems, the order of installation doesn't matter anymore.
It'll install into free space and reuse the ESP, same as what we're
doing.
--
Chris Murphy
2:04 p.m.
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 02:18:43PM -0500, Máirín 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.
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?
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.
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?
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).
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.)
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.
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
1:29 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 11:17 AM Máirín Duffy <duffy(a)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.
--
Chris Murphy
1:56 p.m.
On Sun, Dec 6, 2020 at 11:17 AM Máirín Duffy <duffy(a)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
12:28 p.m.
On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 11:40 PM Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)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?
I am not a bootloader/installer or UX expert, so maybe take my two cents
with a grain of salt.
Can't we have a button or dialog window offering "Install side by side with
Windows" to users installing Fedora somewhere where there is WIndows
already (or other Linux, but that might be more problematic)?
That could automagically mount the ESP, shrink Windows part (so the dialog
can contain a slider)...
That would definitely lower a bar for novice users. Also, from what I
remember, this sort of stuff should be safer on UEFI/GPT machines, so the
dialog can show just there?
12:37 p.m.
On Mon, 2020-12-07 at 19:28 +0100, Frantisek Zatloukal wrote:
On Fri, Dec 4, 2020 at 11:40 PM Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)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?
>
I am not a bootloader/installer or UX expert, so maybe take my two cents
with a grain of salt.
Can't we have a button or dialog window offering "Install side by side with
Windows" to users installing Fedora somewhere where there is WIndows
already (or other Linux, but that might be more problematic)?
That could automagically mount the ESP, shrink Windows part (so the dialog
can contain a slider)...
That would definitely lower a bar for novice users. Also, from what I
remember, this sort of stuff should be safer on UEFI/GPT machines, so the
dialog can show just there?
We already do, pretty much. That's what you get if you use guided
partitioning: you drag a slider to resize your existing main windows
partition, and anaconda deals with bootloader partitions etc. for you.
If that breaks it's a bug.
The person in the thread used custom partitioning, which, well, expects
you to do more stuff.
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA
IRC: adamw | Twitter: adamw_ha
https://www.happyassassin.net
12:49 p.m.
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 10:37:05AM -0800, Adam Williamson wrote:
We already do, pretty much. That's what you get if you use
guided
partitioning: you drag a slider to resize your existing main windows
partition, and anaconda deals with bootloader partitions etc. for you.
If that breaks it's a bug.
The person in the thread used custom partitioning, which, well, expects
you to do more stuff.
How confident are we that if they'd picked guided partitioning, it would
have Just Worked? I am happy to gently say "you're getting a more
complicated experience because you picked the option labeled 'advanced
custom'", but I don't want to do that if the guided option won't work
for
some reason.
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader
1:17 p.m.
On Mon, 2020-12-07 at 13:49 -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Mon, Dec 07, 2020 at 10:37:05AM -0800, Adam Williamson wrote:
> We already do, pretty much. That's what you get if you use guided
> partitioning: you drag a slider to resize your existing main windows
> partition, and anaconda deals with bootloader partitions etc. for you.
> If that breaks it's a bug.
>
> The person in the thread used custom partitioning, which, well, expects
> you to do more stuff.
How confident are we that if they'd picked guided partitioning, it would
have Just Worked? I am happy to gently say "you're getting a more
complicated experience because you picked the option labeled 'advanced
custom'", but I don't want to do that if the guided option won't work
for
some reason.
In that particular case, file under "not very", because it seems odd
that what the user describes themselves as doing didn't work. As
described it *should* have worked.
But in *general* I'd say "fairly". I'm not aware of any huge bugs in
the guided flow. In a typical scenario it ought to work.
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA
IRC: adamw | Twitter: adamw_ha
https://www.happyassassin.net
3:51 p.m.
On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 12:18 PM Adam Williamson
<adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On Mon, 2020-12-07 at 13:49 -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
> How confident are we that if they'd picked guided partitioning, it would
> have Just Worked? I am happy to gently say "you're getting a more
> complicated experience because you picked the option labeled 'advanced
> custom'", but I don't want to do that if the guided option won't
work for
> some reason.
In that particular case, file under "not very", because it seems odd
that what the user describes themselves as doing didn't work. As
described it *should* have worked.
They didn't describe the Advanced-Custom layout at all. I get no
indication they chose the existing ESP or creating a new one, and
assigning it to /boot/efi. Based on the error message, I'm supremely
confident they didn't do that. And that automatic/guided path would
have worked.
--
Chris Murphy
6:07 p.m.
On Mon, 2020-12-07 at 14:51 -0700, Chris Murphy wrote:
On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 12:18 PM Adam Williamson
<adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
>
> On Mon, 2020-12-07 at 13:49 -0500, Matthew Miller wrote:
> > How confident are we that if they'd picked guided partitioning, it would
> > have Just Worked? I am happy to gently say "you're getting a more
> > complicated experience because you picked the option labeled 'advanced
> > custom'", but I don't want to do that if the guided option
won't work for
> > some reason.
>
> In that particular case, file under "not very", because it seems odd
> that what the user describes themselves as doing didn't work. As
> described it *should* have worked.
They didn't describe the Advanced-Custom layout at all. I get no
indication they chose the existing ESP or creating a new one, and
assigning it to /boot/efi. Based on the error message, I'm supremely
confident they didn't do that. And that automatic/guided path would
have worked.
Oh, I think I misread a bit. I was reading the quoted text in
https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/problems-making-dual-boot-fedora-w10/10766/3
as part of the reporter's description, but I think it may be quoted
from the article mattdm linked to and the OP is just saying they don't
find it to be enough information.
If so, then yeah, we don't really have any info about what they tried
to do and it's most likely that they did it wrong, and that guided
partitioning would've worked fine.
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA
IRC: adamw | Twitter: adamw_ha
https://www.happyassassin.net
3:24 a.m.
On Mon, Dec 7, 2020 at 7:39 PM Adam Williamson <adamwill(a)fedoraproject.org>
wrote:
We already do, pretty much. That's what you get if you use
guided
partitioning: you drag a slider to resize your existing main windows
partition, and anaconda deals with bootloader partitions etc. for you.
If that breaks it's a bug.
The person in the thread used custom partitioning, which, well, expects
you to do more stuff.
Hehe :) , I guess I just never got used to Anaconda partitioning layout and
was thinking about something in these lines + the slider (without showing
anything about partitions to the user, just box to tick and install
button):
https://news-cdn.softpedia.com/images/news2/how-to-dual-boot-windows-10-a...
.
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39 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
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Adam Williamson -
Benson Muite -
Chris Murphy -
Chuck Anderson -
Frantisek Zatloukal -
Lukas Ruzicka -
Matthew Miller -
Máirín Duffy -
Naheem Zaffar -
Neal Gompa