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Fedora 18 Installer: Counterintuitive and Confusing?
An anonymous reader writes "Igor Ljubuncic, former physicist and current IT Systems Programmer and blogger, reviews Fedora 18 with its new installer. In his role as alter ego Dedoimedo, the self proclaimed 'king of everything', Igor's Linux distro and DE reviews are often wry and biting and this review is no exception: 'You enter a world of smartphone-like diarrhea that undermines everything and anything that is sane and safe. In all my life testing Linux and other operating systems, I have never ever seen an installer that is so counter-intuitive, dangerous and useless, all at the same time.'"
The non-linear installer interface does look like kind of confusing, at least from the screenshots posted.
I am also extremely disappointed in this Fedora release. The installer is confusing and exhibits seemingly random behavior. I was so overjoyed I managed to get it to install it the way I wanted just once on a VM that I went and tried to install in a number of other places. No go.
And after you install, a lot of things are kind of buggy and seemingly incomplete.
Of course, since the installer didn't really work at all until you got to release candidate 4 or so, I can't really expect any other part of the system to have been decently tested.
This is a horrible release and should be skipped. If Fedora continues to go in this direction, I will have to abandon it, despite the fact that the only other decent alternative is Ubuntu, and I despise it. I've been an RH/Fedora user since 1999 or so.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Do all the cool touch screen wicked BITCHUN shit but do it for the wrong system in the wrong way with the wrong tools and make them happy Magic Kingdom goers GAG on it.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
worked great for me.(It upgraded from Fedora 17 to 18)
Quoth the Fedora wiki,
So, it's like the Debian installer, only less powerful and more confusing!
/me runs away
A beta of Fedora 18's installer completely wiped my hard drive. I told it to partition the drive. It partitioned it, installed Linux fine, and ALSO formatted every NTFS partition to a fresh EXT4. Even for a beta, this is a sign there's something seriously wrong. After using SuSE for years, then Ubuntu for years, then a very brief love affair with Fedora 17 KDE (mainly, delta RPM updates), I returned to OpenSuSE after 10 years away and probably will never switch away again. As far as integrated admin tools and the installer, OpenSuSE's have always been exceptional. Also, my reason for switching from DEB to RPM-based distro was it seems Debian's core package management tools haven't seemed to evolve much in years while RPM appears to have improved quite a bit. The delta-compressed updates is a huge deal for me, but also the general speed of the tools. OpenSuSE's zypper tool also gives a bit of freedom in installing 'unmatched' later versions of libs but if things go wrong, it's easy to trace and downgrade. Also, the package management tools integrate with btrfs snapshots and there's a powerful tool called 'snapper' which gives you quick access to rollback or version diffs.
You know what? If Igor thinks can do it better, then he should fork that thing and roll his own distro.
Or, instead of forking, contribute a patch or two to improve things.
I thought I could improve RAID in the Linux kernel, so I did. Patch accepted, so now when I download a new version of Linux, it includes my fix and thousand of improvements others have made. I thought I could improve Apache, so I did. Patch accepted. I thought I could improve Moodle in a half a dozen ways. Half a dozen patches accepted. I thought I could improve Linux:LVM. I'm now the maintainer.
Forking is the last resort, when no reasonable patches are accepted. If you don't like the way something works in OSS, contribute a fix.
For those of us fed up where with where distros are going these days, it's looking to me like Linux Mint is probably the place I'm going to end up. I want a system I can understand, manipulate and use. Crap like this installer, the new systemd stuff, I just don't need or want. Sadly it looks like Microsoft has little to fear as we're doing a good job of taking ourselves out of the game and market without them having to do much.
Given that the installer is so dangerous, I cannot recommend F18 to any non-expert. Who knows what it will do to your existing windows or linux installs. Maybe F18 should be considered VM only?
I don't understand what's happening with Linux these days. Buggy installers, crappy UIs in an attempt to change the "GUI paradigm" for whatever reason, unstable software (particularly compared to that in, say, Windows 7), kernel/power regressions, etc. I was interested in Linux because it was (at some point in time) more robust and stable than Windows, that it was technically superior. Now I'm not so sure anymore.
NB. I'm talking about desktop use; I'm sure Linux is superior in many ways for servers and embedded devices - the desktop experience as a whole still seems rather immature still unfortunately.
I haven't used RH in over a decade--but do remember years ago they had a decent installer that would even pull up a tetris game to occupy you while it copied files. Sad to hear it's gone downhill. (Or am I recalling Caldera's installer?)
It doesn't look like FUD exactly. That bit about two HD icons with identical model names side by side in no particular order isn't a geek vs. non-geek issue, it's a bad UI decision.
No auto login isn't geek vs. non-geek either, nor is having to root around on the fs to find the installer.
Things like that are just broken for geeks and non-geeks alike. It's a big step backwards from the old installer.
I installed Fedora 18 (KDE Spin, of course) on Friday and "counterintuitive and confusing" was a pretty good description. And the partitioning- yeesh, what a mess- please just give me the option for something nice like gparted. I was very disappointed. 17 was much better. Both were still better than Ubuntu. Neither is as good as Mandriva/Mageia.
There has to be a balance between streamlining vs. asking questions vs. expert mode. There is little balance in Fedora 18. I have a feeling it will be revised quite a bit for 19 (at least I hope it will).
So basically what you're saying is that in order to have any right to complain about open source software you have to have knowledge, experience, and skill in programming? Because when you say "Why don't you submit a patch?", that's what you're implying.
Newsflash: Not every user of FOSS software knows how to program. Nor should they need to know. Unless you want it to turn into some sort of exclusive little club, in which case the worldwide share of Linux would drop by a good 99%.
Users aren't complaining because they want to be whiny or difficult. They're complaining because they see a flaw. If you want your software to be widely accepted, listen. If your software is just coding for self satisfaction, and you don't care about user adoption, then don't listen.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Even when both user and dev are programmers of the same skill level there's a huge gulf in knowledge. A 5 hour patch for the user might be a 5 minute job for a dev since they've already learned the code. So I generally use my dev skills to give a really good description of the problem and test cases. Usually the only times I write a patch are when it's a feature specifically for me, or I've gone into so much detail finding the bug I already found the fix. I consider that to be a good contribution to the community and on projects I've managed in the past I really appreciated users who gave good bug reports.
Tone is also a big factor of course, I find general nagging to be more acceptable for a large project where the individual devs have less personal stake in the project (and are more likely to be paid). Ragging on a one person hobby project is just kinda pointless.
I stole this Sig
Agreed. Debian got it right. Installation is a mostly linear process. There may be some steps that can be skipped in some cases, but the order will not really change. You never install the base system before partitioning the drive, etc. I am an expert and I very rarely have any need or desire to go out of order with a Debian installation.
I appreciate that Fedora wants to accommodate those rare cases, but doing away with all concept of a linear order isn't the way to do it. I can't imagine what they're thinking with Fedora.
Why is providing feedback whining to you? I find it to be more helpful than random patches or other contributions.
Thing is, I don't want everyone and their brother submitting patches to a project I work on. I prefer the coding to be done by a core group of people I've vetted and know they are willing to maintain what they submit. I'd much rather get feedback to see if my ideas are headed in the right way my userbase wants it to be headed. Sure, I don't always go in that direction, but it's helpful to see what they want. And it way beats a poorly written patch submitted by someone who doesn't want to maintain it.
I don't know what I was thinking to enlist in redhats beta program (AKA fedora) .. I never admitted to having a brain.
Starting from Fedora 16.
Put F18 disk in drive and boots new UI. My immediate thought was oh great more ultra modern zombie interface bs.
I was confused do I just click next and continue? Where are all the options/upgrade settings and all of the old raid/enterprise? Will it just be smart enough to work and upgrade my system?
What scares me the most is that I'm 95% sure it would have auto-installed itself had I clicked continue with NO prompting and no scary messages of any kind. I say this cause I later spun up a VM with F18 and when you click continue on the main screen if its not shadowed out thats it.
Then I give up and RTFM check wiki apparently you can't upgrade from anything earlier than 17.
Okie so previous attempts to use the yum repo approach always ended in disaster...burn DVD... upgrade 16->17 from DVD runs flawlessly as ususal.
I'm now running F17. Wiki says I need to install fedup to upgrade to F18... alright do that.
Reboot and the fedup fedora icon keeps blinking on screen as if it is doing something but nothing happens..ever.. I waited an hour and it was not even touching the disks... hit escape to check for any useful hints messages or errors...none...of course.
So much for fedup... fedup with fedup just way too obvious.
Next reboot to F17...hey I know I'll type yum update and ah try again..yea thats it... it downloads tons of patches and I reboot to an instant kernel panic.. apparently a regression..so I spend the next 20 minutes trying to figure out how to change grub to prefer the old kernel version that still works. The files I found had an annoying nack for being auto generated with comments pointing to stuff only relevant for previous versions of grub. In hindsight uninstalling the bad kernel package would have been a lot easier.
So next I try fedup again after clearing out its data and surprise the same problem.
So much for F18 I'll try again with F19 and hope for better luck.
If linux distro folk are looking something actually broken to improve here are a few ideas:
So once installed the UI's look really nice...lol love KDE's windows 7 gadgets knockoff down to the exact behavior and configuration icons.... but still linux fonts suck, low quality, poor selection, too big, too aliased.
Try replacing a failed disk in a raid1 intel matrix fakeraid setup with a drive of a different (larger) size... WTF.. honestly.. its f'in impossible. or mirroring an existing system without reinstalling. Also impossible. In windows it takes 20 seconds and a few clicks of a mouse.
Replace ping with a version that works with both address families like all of the other operating systems and all of the other network utilities.
Please keep at the least the basic x86 libraries by default on 64-bit systems so we can run the same commercial stuff without going thru unecessary hoops.
I don't think I buy that "analysis" (using the term loosely). I mean, ultimately, the point of the gift is to be of use to people. If your gift isn't useful to people, you need to know that -- so you need those complaints.
Which is to say: The complaints are a contribution, and in this case, one desperately needed.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
You have to acknowledge some of his points. Showing two identical disk names without any further distinction is retarded, there's just no way around it.
Don't treat users like stupid sheep who'd be confused by /dev/sda or whatever it is. You take away all starting-points for them to even learn something. I didn't learn UNIX because everything was hidden away from me, I learned it because I _saw_ stuff and it made sense.
Dont hide details. Have them make sense.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
... and the hyperlinked disk summary and options gives an empty screen.
Dropbox drops it like it's hot.
Did a fresh F18 install on my laptop this past week.
I have to agree with a lot of the criticism of the new installer, and particularly the user interface for disk partitioning. I've been running Linux since the late 90s and I don't think I've ever been confused by a partition editor, from fdisk on up - until now.
I mean, the error message I got was "Not enough disk space to create a mountpoint". WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!? And this while trying to get the thing to recognize my existing /home partition.
It's like someone who has never partitioned a disk before created a really bad abstract model of the process and then based the whole user interface off of their grand concept. In the process of trying to make things easy they made it hard for anyone who knows what they are doing to be specific about what should be done. A liberal sprinkling of incorrectly-used disk partitioning terms makes for a real perfect storm of confusion.
Once I got things installed, I had no problems at all. I hope to never feel that "oh shit, I hope I haven't just blown my /home away" thrill ever again though.
While suggesting alternatives, it's good to suggest members of the same 'family' of distros, since the user might have had reasons for picking one. If someone's trying out Fedora, then alternatives would be PCLinuxOS, Mageia, Mandriva, Blag or Scientific Linux. If one is trying out Ubuntu, one might want to go w/ Mint, Hybryde, Zorin, Trisquel or any of the others. If one was w/ Slackware, try out Vector, Slax, Salix or Slackel. If one was w/ Gentoo, try out Sabayon or Calculate Linux. If one was w/ Arch, try out Chakra, Frugalware or Manjaro. In short, suggest something that's more likely to preserve most of the attributes of a distro, while avoiding the rough edges.
It doesn't look like FUD exactly. That bit about two HD icons with identical model names side by side in no particular order isn't a geek vs. non-geek issue, it's a bad UI decision.
No auto login isn't geek vs. non-geek either, nor is having to root around on the fs to find the installer.
Things like that are just broken for geeks and non-geeks alike. It's a big step backwards from the old installer.
Red Hat installers have been buggy mess since forever. Even back in the days of Red Hat 4 there were issues like nag screens popping up but your crappy 640x480 display was so much smaller than the RH developer's magnificent 1280x768 display that the OK button ended up off screen. Another one of my favorites was a RH installer where you ended up filling out a form but to fill it out you needed information form the previous screen which was no biggie except.... there was no back button.... **curses** restart install... reach for pen and paper....
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Did you make sure that your computer had power? Was it turned on?
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
Anyone can make a system "easy" by hiding away all the details and anyone can make a system "powerful" by providing config knobs for every minute detail and drowning the user in debug output.
The real genius is designing a system so it's easy to understand and use, i.e. it's cleanly designed and "makes sense" and has well-thought config defaults, yet provides reasonable configurability without "overengineering". That seems exceptionally hard.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
Dare I say this is why people use Windows and not Nix? I'm sure you could recompile the mess to your liking though... Just get g'ma to do that.
I dare say that anyone making that choice would be mistaken - at least if it's for the reason that this installer sucks.
Does Microsoft allow you to resize existing partitions to make space for the new OS? Has Microsoft stopped their long-held practice of hosing the first primary partition & MBR as either gross incompetence or punishment for dabbling with the competition? Does Microsoft allow you to remove / replace the desktop environment if you find the bundled one doesn't suit your needs / preferences? Does Microsoft finally supply a help system that actually provides... help? Does Microsoft allow you to install if you have misplaced your installation key? Does Microsoft still force you to type in a (lengthy, meaningless) software key?
I doubt grandma could do a bare install of Windows on a blank disk either. And if she were to try, I'd wager that *most* GNU/Linux distros would provide better guidance along the way. After all, my Mom's a grandma and she uses Ubuntu with no problems -- fewer than when she was using XP.
The reverse is often also true. As a senior engineer, I'm aware of older tools and subtleties that a developer may not know. Sanitizing inputs, the differences between the tools in the installed operating system, and those within the installer environment itself are excellent examples. For Fedora and Red Hat, most people installing Linux are unaware that you can hit "Ctrl-Alt-F2" to get an active shell in the installation environment, a shell with which one can probe and even reconfigure disks and network devices manually, then hit "Ctrl-Alt-F1" to get back to the installation console or use commands like "Ctrl-Alt-F6" to get back to the X based login, They're also unaware that you can stop just before rebooting and use the same "Ctrl-Alt-Fn" commands to do some manual fine tuning of your configuration before that reboot. But this sort of workaround is counter to the new Fedora installer model, even though it's vital for dealing with attached storage or critical kernel patches.
I applaud many of Fedora's open source and development efforts: partners and colleagues I work with certainly benefit from bleeding edge access to such tools to test, modify, and patch in production and personal use. But my test last weekend of this installer is tha it is burdensome. They've lost track of the idea that the installer is not there to show off technological expertise of the developers. It's there to accomplish distinct, linear tasks that need to be extremely robust and not dependent on complex additional toolkits.
Why would I give a hoot what Richard stallman wants? Do you spend your day trying to please Richard Stallman? I sure don't.
Except that you are not even thinking fully. The people who you claim "contribute nothing" actually contribute a lot. They are free testers of your product. It in and of itself is a very valuable asset to have. The people who dont even give valuable feedback should be the target of your ire, not people who do.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
I will say that both Ubuntu and Fedora are going along those lines.
Once upon a time the prevaliing community mocked MS for their over-complicated underpinnings with complex inter-component APIs, binary registry, etc etc. We reveled in our straightforward, plain-text configuration that was trivial to examine, if not a tad incovenient for developers to parse and human error could produce confusing errors for the 'uninitiated', but experts had the easiest time writing one-off scripts to do whatever they wanted.
Now, we have things like dbus, network manager, dconf, and systemd effectively mimicking the behavior the community once marked. Now ludicrous 'dbus-send' commands are the only recourse for scripted workflows, the once simple task of writing an init script is now somewhat complicated because they really want a correct dependency graph to speed up boot (a noble goal, but the approach makes administration more difficult). The software stack strongly suggests *not* manipulating resolv.conf at all, instead manipulating some local instance of dnsmasq.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
If that's how you feel, then don't release your code into the wild in the first place. Then you don't have to worry about those loser users or their feedback that they took time to give you.
You know, maybe you should buy the users tacos when they give you feedback....there are companies out there that actually PAY people to test out software with user testing.
And don't release it.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
Many FOSS developers put donation links on their websites. Many users donate.
Friendliness and openness towards users leads to donations. Hostility doesn't.
I don't know what software you write, but:
a) Do you even have a donation link?
b) Are you hostile towards users? (I think I know the answer.)
In any case, from the sounds of it in this thread, you don't seem to care if another person on earth uses your software.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
Oh, and as for "freeloaders" not being beneficial, consider this:
Firefox was established to end IE6's reign of terror on the web, and bring web standards back into play, benefiting everyone. Would they have accomplished that without the millions of "freeloaders" who eagerly downloaded and installed it, slowly chipping away at IE's numbers?
I realize that doesn't apply to every case, but it certainly does in some.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
So many poorly executed steps backwards... up2date replaced by yum
Heh - I always considered "up2date" to be the original awful college laptop pandering move, and rejoiced when yum got capable enough to replace it. yum+rpm does a pretty good job of package management. yum's scripted and configurable. up2date relied on users having a throbbing blinky thing on their desktop and taking action in a way which was spookily similar to Windows Update, plus it had a bad habit of taking all your memory and CPU in the process.
the abominable excrescence that is Network Manager on a wired machine...
On the other hand, I cannot agree with you more about this. Unfortunately, this happened long enough ago that Network Manager has since also infected RHEL and derivative server distros, which is even sillier. Step #1 on server installs for me is to rip it out by the roots, something which solves many problems (and should be the default install).
Try to get a recent Fedora or RHEL to work without a GUI or a caching LDAP client, for a quick and easy real good time (not).
Try Fedora 18. You won't even get an option to set the hostname during install. Apparently localhost.localdomain is good enough for everyone, because everyone will get the hostname set by DHCP, right?
As for disliking yum, you'll be pleased to know that with F18, there are 41 yum packages, six of which get installed by default, and most (but not all) of the rest will enable themselves on install. So you're never going to know how a system will behave. And upgrading using yum is deprecated, and has been balkanized into the aptly named "fedup".
You got to wonder what these kids are smoking, and whether it'd be worth it to try to toke them a good one.
These guys make smit look good, and that's quite an achievement.
(it was more than a 386 but less than some 586 systems)
So it was a 486?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF