Getting to the initial GUI seemed to take forever. Once there, I started at what seemed to be the beginning, upper left of the block of stuff in the middle, expecting to have to tell Anaconda the PC clock is set local. Once in time configuration, I find not only is there no apparent way to set clock to local time, Anaconda thinks no NTP server is configured even though it seemed to agree with my specification of us.pool.ntp.org, and there is a way to exit time configuration. What's the trick to getting out of time config? Oooohhhhhhhhhh, it's top left. Is there any other UI on the planet where where a done or OK button is at the upper left?
Next, installation destination: it shows my HD with model number. I click it, but nothing apparent happens. Oooohhhhhhhh, down at the botton below a desert of whitespace, in mousetype, each click of the image alternately selects and deselects several naked words instead of anything that obviously has anything to do with the task at hand. So finally I figure out how to select a partition, and when done specifying mount point and filesystem, the _prior_ partition has been set to / instead of the one I chose, and there's no way to undo it!!!
At this point, Anaconda locked up, but I was able to goto tty2 and reboot.
On 2012-11-30 23:21 (GMT-0500) Felix Miata composed:
Getting to the initial GUI seemed to take forever. Once there, I started at what seemed to be the beginning, upper left of the block of stuff in the middle, expecting to have to tell Anaconda the PC clock is set local. Once in time configuration, I find not only is there no apparent way to set clock to local time, Anaconda thinks no NTP server is configured even though it seemed to agree with my specification of us.pool.ntp.org, and there is a way to exit time configuration. What's the trick to getting out of time config? Oooohhhhhhhhhh, it's top left. Is there any other UI on the planet where where a done or OK button is at the upper left?
Next, installation destination: it shows my HD with model number. I click it, but nothing apparent happens. Oooohhhhhhhh, down at the botton below a desert of whitespace, in mousetype, each click of the image alternately selects and deselects several naked words instead of anything that obviously has anything to do with the task at hand. So finally I figure out how to select a partition, and when done specifying mount point and filesystem, the _prior_ partition has been set to / instead of the one I chose, and there's no way to undo it!!!
At this point, Anaconda locked up, but I was able to goto tty2 and reboot.
Forgot to mention, pretty much everything is about 2/3 the size it needs to be in Anaconda. I found that *quoted* resolution on cmdline makes the ttys acceptable, but Anaconda thinks it's OK to ignore that. What's needed on cmdline to make Anaconda's text legible?
On 2012-11-30 23:25 (GMT-0500) Felix Miata composed:
On 2012-11-30 23:21 (GMT-0500) Felix Miata composed:
Getting to the initial GUI seemed to take forever. Once there, I started at what seemed to be the beginning, upper left of the block of stuff in the middle, expecting to have to tell Anaconda the PC clock is set local. Once in time configuration, I find not only is there no apparent way to set clock to local time, Anaconda thinks no NTP server is configured even though it seemed to agree with my specification of us.pool.ntp.org, and there is a way to exit time configuration. What's the trick to getting out of time config? Oooohhhhhhhhhh, it's top left. Is there any other UI on the planet where where a done or OK button is at the upper left?
Next, installation destination: it shows my HD with model number. I click it, but nothing apparent happens. Oooohhhhhhhh, down at the botton below a desert of whitespace, in mousetype, each click of the image alternately selects and deselects several naked words instead of anything that obviously has anything to do with the task at hand. So finally I figure out how to select a partition, and when done specifying mount point and filesystem, the _prior_ partition has been set to / instead of the one I chose, and there's no way to undo it!!!
At this point, Anaconda locked up, but I was able to goto tty2 and reboot.
Forgot to mention, pretty much everything is about 2/3 the size it needs to be in Anaconda. I found that *quoted* resolution on cmdline makes the ttys acceptable, but Anaconda thinks it's OK to ignore that. What's needed on cmdline to make Anaconda's text legible?
That was probably my last Fedora installation ever. Besides the above:
1-It never presented an opportunity to discuss the bootloader, and proceeded to litter the boot track with Grub2.
2-It ignored my selection of an existing type 0x83 partition to use as /. Instead, it rearranged the EBR to make several partitions out of logical disk order (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 11, 13, 12), and it used the entirety of the HD's freespace for itself, about 90.7% of the HD.
On Fri, 2012-11-30 at 23:25 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2012-11-30 23:21 (GMT-0500) Felix Miata composed:
Getting to the initial GUI seemed to take forever. Once there, I started at what seemed to be the beginning, upper left of the block of stuff in the middle, expecting to have to tell Anaconda the PC clock is set local. Once in time configuration, I find not only is there no apparent way to set clock to local time, Anaconda thinks no NTP server is configured even though it seemed to agree with my specification of us.pool.ntp.org, and there is a way to exit time configuration. What's the trick to getting out of time config? Oooohhhhhhhhhh, it's top left. Is there any other UI on the planet where where a done or OK button is at the upper left?
Next, installation destination: it shows my HD with model number. I click it, but nothing apparent happens. Oooohhhhhhhh, down at the botton below a desert of whitespace, in mousetype, each click of the image alternately selects and deselects several naked words instead of anything that obviously has anything to do with the task at hand. So finally I figure out how to select a partition, and when done specifying mount point and filesystem, the _prior_ partition has been set to / instead of the one I chose, and there's no way to undo it!!!
At this point, Anaconda locked up, but I was able to goto tty2 and reboot.
Forgot to mention, pretty much everything is about 2/3 the size it needs to be in Anaconda. I found that *quoted* resolution on cmdline makes the ttys acceptable, but Anaconda thinks it's OK to ignore that. What's needed on cmdline to make Anaconda's text legible?
It's perfectly legible here. anaconda will just be using the default X DPI, I think. I'm not entirely sure what you're asking for, it doesn't do much different in terms of display from what oldUI did.
On 2012-11-30 22:38 (GMT-0800) Adam Williamson composed:
On Fri, 2012-11-30 at 23:25 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
Forgot to mention, pretty much everything is about 2/3 the size it needs to be in Anaconda. I found that *quoted* resolution on cmdline makes the ttys acceptable, but Anaconda thinks it's OK to ignore that. What's needed on cmdline to make Anaconda's text legible?
It's perfectly legible here. anaconda will just be using the default X DPI, I think. I'm not entirely sure what you're asking for, it doesn't do much different in terms of display from what oldUI did.
It's just as bad as F17's: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=701190
The problem is the default size Anaconda fonts for the display's native resolution are too small, and overall, whitespace is massive. By reducing resolution or forcing DPI up, fonts can be made acceptable. The problem is neither workaround for too small fonts is available in Anaconda, at least, not explained anywhere I've been able to find.
My workaround is to start installation on a smaller 1280x1024 LCD, and after Anaconda starts, move the VGA cable to a larger CRT that Anaconda would otherwise set to 1920x1440. This shouldn't be necessary.
On Sat, 2012-12-01 at 02:02 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
On 2012-11-30 22:38 (GMT-0800) Adam Williamson composed:
On Fri, 2012-11-30 at 23:25 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
Forgot to mention, pretty much everything is about 2/3 the size it needs to be in Anaconda. I found that *quoted* resolution on cmdline makes the ttys acceptable, but Anaconda thinks it's OK to ignore that. What's needed on cmdline to make Anaconda's text legible?
It's perfectly legible here. anaconda will just be using the default X DPI, I think. I'm not entirely sure what you're asking for, it doesn't do much different in terms of display from what oldUI did.
It's just as bad as F17's: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=701190
The problem is the default size Anaconda fonts for the display's native resolution are too small, and overall, whitespace is massive. By reducing resolution or forcing DPI up, fonts can be made acceptable. The problem is neither workaround for too small fonts is available in Anaconda, at least, not explained anywhere I've been able to find.
My workaround is to start installation on a smaller 1280x1024 LCD, and after Anaconda starts, move the VGA cable to a larger CRT that Anaconda would otherwise set to 1920x1440. This shouldn't be necessary.
Well, I've never heard anyone else complain about it, or seen it mentioned in any reviews. 'Too small' seems a very subjective judgement. They seem big enough to me.
On 2012-11-30 23:55 (GMT-0800) Adam Williamson composed:
On Sat, 2012-12-01 at 02:02 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
It's just as bad as F17's: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=701190
The problem is the default size Anaconda fonts for the display's native resolution are too small, and overall, whitespace is massive. By reducing resolution or forcing DPI up, fonts can be made acceptable. The problem is neither workaround for too small fonts is available in Anaconda, at least, not explained anywhere I've been able to find.
My workaround is to start installation on a smaller 1280x1024 LCD, and after Anaconda starts, move the VGA cable to a larger CRT that Anaconda would otherwise set to 1920x1440. This shouldn't be necessary.
Well, I've never heard anyone else complain about it, or seen it mentioned in any reviews. 'Too small' seems a very subjective judgement. They seem big enough to me.
Open http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-comps-dejavu.html in Chromium. Measure the width of the black "inch" to get a frame of reference to compare what you see to what I see. Here on a 20" 1600x1200 LCD it measures 15/16". The (19.8" actual; nominal 21" NEC FE2111SB) CRT Anaconda has running at 1920x1440 connected to the F18 installer measures 1/8" shorter (12.125" vs 12.0" tall), for all practical purposes the same size as the LCD I'm writing this on. The closest match on http://fm.no-ip.com/Auth/Font/fonts-comps-dejavu.html to the description text for the various selections on the Software Selection page is the uppermost 8pt line. It's actually measurably larger than the 8pt line, but much much smaller than the 9pt line. By comparison, my browser defaults in the Geckos I actually use to browse with are a closest match to Chromium's display of the uppermost 14pt line, while my UI text on the desktop is closest to the 12pt line. Figuring the actual size of the installer's text to be about 8.2pt on the Chromium browser scale, it's about 67% of the size of my browsers' minimum size settings, 47% of the size of my desktop's UI text, and 34% of comfortable, my browser's "14pt" (on the Chromium scale) default; where "size" is a function of area (height & width), not the nominal sizes used by CSS. It's actually worse than 34% of comfortable. NAICT, the actual px size is 8px @1920x1440, and it takes 9px at a minimum to fully form most alpha characters on a computer display. Anaconda makes that text look like scribble.
On Fri, 2012-11-30 at 23:21 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
Next, installation destination: it shows my HD with model number. I click it, but nothing apparent happens. Oooohhhhhhhh, down at the botton below a desert of whitespace, in mousetype, each click of the image alternately selects and deselects several naked words instead of anything that obviously has anything to do with the task at hand. So finally I figure out how to select a partition, and when done specifying mount point and filesystem, the _prior_ partition has been set to / instead of the one I chose, and there's no way to undo it!!!
I don't think you were doing what you think you were doing. That screen is not about 'selecting partitions'. You're just selecting target disks for the install. You can pick what disks should and shouldn't be considered targets for the install, and if you click on 'Full disk summary and options...', you can pick which one gets the bootloader. (Post-Beta, you can also select not to install a bootloader here). That is all you can do at this screen. Once you've picked your disks, you click Continue at bottom-right, and you should get a dialog which either tells you you have enough space to install, or you don't have enough space to install. Either way, there is a checkbox marked 'Let me customize disk partitioning', and a drop-down to select the default partition type, LVM, btrfs or raw ext4.
If you check the 'Let me customize disk partitioning' box and hit 'Continue' or 'Reclaim space' (depending which version of the dialog you get), you get into custom partitioning, where you can do pretty much anything you like (though it works very differently to old custom part), including re-using existing partitions, removing them, shrinking them, and creating new ones. The partition type you set in the drop-down will be the *default* type for new partitions you create during custom part, but you can still change them to a different type if you like.
If you *don't* check the box, then what happens depends whether you have enough space for an install or not. If you got the 'you have enough space' version of the dialog, and you don't check the box, then when you hit Continue, you're done: you'll get an autopart install, using whatever partition type you picked from the drop-down, when you complete the other spokes and start the install. If you got the 'you don't have enough space' version of the dialog, then when you hit 'Reclaim space', you'll get a dialog which lets you delete or shrink some existing partitions to free up space for the Fedora install. Once you've made choices that would free up enough space for install, you can escape this dialog, and again you're done: you'll get an autopart install into the freed-up space.
So what happened in your case depends on what path you chose through the later dialog. It sounds like you misunderstood what each step of the disk selection / partitioning process does. At a guess, you wound up doing an autopart install when you wanted a custom one, but I'm just guessing.
On 2012-12-30 22:37 (GMT-0800) Adam Williamson composed:
On Fri, 2012-11-30 at 23:21 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
Next, installation destination: it shows my HD with model number. I click it, but nothing apparent happens. Oooohhhhhhhh, down at the botton below a desert of whitespace, in mousetype, each click of the image alternately selects and deselects several naked words instead of anything that obviously has anything to do with the task at hand. So finally I figure out how to select a partition, and when done specifying mount point and filesystem, the _prior_ partition has been set to / instead of the one I chose, and there's no way to undo it!!!
I don't think you were doing what you think you were doing.
I'd been following the F18-Beta installer - Aaaargh! thread and thought I understood enough to get through it.
That screen is not about 'selecting partitions'. You're just selecting target disks for the install. You can pick what disks should and shouldn't be considered targets for the install, and if you click on 'Full disk summary and options...',
I did click that. There was only one HD to choose from.
you can pick which one gets the bootloader.
Never saw the word bootloader anywhere.
(Post-Beta, you can also select not to install a bootloader here). That is all you can do at this screen. Once you've picked your disks, you click Continue at bottom-right, and you should get a dialog which either tells you you have enough space to install, or you don't have enough space to install. Either way, there is a checkbox marked 'Let me customize disk partitioning', and a drop-down to select the default partition type, LVM, btrfs or raw ext4.
Been there too.
If you check the 'Let me customize disk partitioning' box and hit 'Continue' or 'Reclaim space' (depending which version of the dialog you get), you get into custom partitioning, where you can do pretty much anything you like (though it works very differently to old custom part), including re-using existing partitions, removing them, shrinking them, and creating new ones. The partition type you set in the drop-down will be the *default* type for new partitions you create during custom part, but you can still change them to a different type if you like.
Based upon what I had been reading here, I thought I understood what I was seeing and doing.
If you *don't* check the box, then what happens depends whether you have enough space for an install or not. If you got the 'you have enough
90+% of a 500GB HD was freespace. What I wanted was installation to a partition already created for the purpose.
space' version of the dialog, and you don't check the box, then when you hit Continue, you're done: you'll get an autopart install, using
I never select any installer's automatic anything. I partition, and install my preferred bootloader, before I start, always.
whatever partition type you picked from the drop-down, when you complete the other spokes and start the install. If you got the 'you don't have enough space' version of the dialog, then when you hit 'Reclaim space',
To me, reclaim space = disturb existing. I would never make such a choice intentionally.
you'll get a dialog which lets you delete or shrink some existing partitions to free up space for the Fedora install. Once you've made choices that would free up enough space for install, you can escape this dialog, and again you're done: you'll get an autopart install into the freed-up space.
So what happened in your case depends on what path you chose through the later dialog. It sounds like you misunderstood what each step of the disk selection / partitioning process does. At a guess, you wound up doing an autopart install when you wanted a custom one, but I'm just guessing.
May be. I'm not going to try to use the F18 installer through to completion ever again. As a follow up I did a minimal F17 into the same space after restoring what I had to start with. If it accepts a Yum upgrade to F18, then I'll try running F18, but no more of that vexing F18 installer for me.
I also did a follow-up screenshot to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=701190 so you can see my definition of illegible text.
On Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:21:18 -0500, Felix Miata wrote:
Getting to the initial GUI seemed to take forever. Once there, I started at what seemed to be the beginning, upper left of the block of stuff in the middle, expecting to have to tell Anaconda the PC clock is set local. Once in time configuration, I find not only is there no apparent way to set clock to local time, Anaconda thinks no NTP server is configured even though it seemed to agree with my specification of us.pool.ntp.org, and there is a way to exit time configuration. What's the trick to getting out of time config?
Here I need to toggle Off->On the NTP server switch for the yellow warning to disappear in a second. Other than that I only choose the timezone on that screen, but I've had to toggle the switch the last dozen times I booted the installer.
Only rarely the installer starts with no such yellow warning about the unconfigured NTP server.
So finally I figure out how to select a partition, and when done specifying mount point and filesystem, the _prior_ partition has been set to / instead of the one I chose, and there's no way to undo it!!!
The '-' button may be for that, but contrary to its small pop-up description, when clicking it, it warns about deleting all data on a selected partition, which is why I haven't tried it yet. ;-)
On 2012-12-01 14:51 (GMT-0700) Peter Gueckel composed:
Felix Miata wrote:
Is there any other UI on the planet where where a done or OK button is at the upper left?
I guess you're not a KDE user ;-)
I'm a KDE-only user!
SystemSettings has a button with a back arrow, which effectively has the same function as the 'done' button -- in the upper left corner!
A back arrow is a getmebacktowhereIcamefrom button, like in a web browser. That's not a direct equivalent to either OK or Done. In the case of systemsettings in 4.9.3, it has a label: Overview, also not directly equivalent to OK or Done.
On Dec 1, 2012, at 2:51 PM, Peter Gueckel pgueckel@gmail.com wrote:
Felix Miata wrote:
Is there any other UI on the planet where where a done or OK button is at the upper left?
I guess you're not a KDE user ;-)
SystemSettings has a button with a back arrow, which effectively has the same function as the 'done' button -- in the upper left corner!
OMFG kill me now. Another person comparing the travesty of the Done button with actual coherent user interface…
An anaconda dev used Gnome System Settings and OS X System Preferences as a defense for the Done button location too. But this is a great example of spatially challenged people building GUI navigation.
1. Those other UI examples aren't squeezing their respective button amongst a lot of other unrelated clutter. Anaconda wedges the Done button very tightly amongst a lot of unrelated text. The other examples use clear demarkation in gradation, color, or a line, separating navigation from non-navigation areas.
2. Those other UI examples do not leverage diagonally split navigation. Anaconda does, as if someone is sneezing as their means of determining where to place navigation elements. This is like putting the steering wheel in the trunk. Or a web browser forward button on the lower right side of the browser, leaving the back button on the upper left. That would be stupid, wouldn't it? There is no nice way to say this!
3. The other UI examples don't context switch user setting preservation. Anaconda does. Anaconda's upper left button *preserves* user settings when it's the Done button. But when it becomes the "Back to destination selection" button in Manual Partitioning, it *discards* user settings. If you don't understand that changing button text alone does NOT completely change its functional meaning, that location is relevant to the behavior of the button, then start now.
The Done button example is about as basic as blatantly bad UX gets. If you don't get how bad it is, maybe consider UI/UX is not your strongest subject matter.
Chris Murphy
On 2012-11-30 23:21 (GMT-0500) Felix Miata composed:
Getting to the initial GUI seemed to take forever.
I timed it, from pressing ENTER for the appropriate Grub menu entry to start HTTP installation, it took 5 minutes 10 seconds to reach the GUI. Most of the time spent with dracut-initqueue times/amounts filling the bottom of the screen.
/proc/cmdline contained: repo=http://mirrors.us.kernel.org/fedora/releases/test/18-Beta/Fedora/x86_64/os ip=192.168.1.20::192.168.1.1:255.255.255.0:myhost::none nameserver=192.168.1.1 rd.luks=0 rd.md=0 rd.dm=0 splash=verbose noipv6 selinux=0 resolution='1024x768' video=1024x768 vga=791 nofirewire
Doing the same thing with F17 kernel/initrd took about 4m 10s.
http://testmy.net/results reports download speed 7.9mbps
Doing the same thing with Mageia 2 took about 2m 10s.
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Adam Williamson -
Chris Murphy -
Felix Miata -
Michael Schwendt -
Peter G.