Re: Summary of shared EFI system partition discussion

On 10/16/2015 02:51 AM, Chris Murphy wrote:
> If we'd hurt embedded users by hiding the ESP in custom, we're also
> hurting them with the wrong default in automatic.  So their respective
> WG or SIG needs to do the necessary customization to make sure the ESP
> size default is set for that arch, I'm pretty sure that's possible
> now.

You just described how we wouldn't actually be hurting them in 
automatic. What ISO are they going to be installing with if not one 
tailored for embedded? I don't think any of the primary 3 would be 
appropriate.

>>> The consequence of showing them such things is that we're effectively
>>> telling users for the first time in free software OS installer history
>>> they need to understand how Windows boots. They never had to understand
>>> the Windows bootloader esoterics before,
>>
>>
>> Again, they absolutely had to. Your last sentence there is absolutely
>> untrue. I have had to manually set up a bootloader to access a Windows
>> install I unwittingly rendered unbootable via a Linux multiboot installation
>> before. Multiple times. Multiple distros.
>
> I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I've only done
> several hundred Fedora installations after Windows XP, Vista, 8 and 10
> and in every case Fedora did the right thing, except when it didn't
> and in every case it didn't it was a legitimate bug. So no the user
> doesn't have to know about chainloading and where the Windows
> bootloader is located - Windows users don't even know that stuff.

Do you remember this screen?

http://linuxgrrl.com/fedora-ux/Projects/Anaconda/Screenshots/RHL%208.0/Screenshot-15.png

We don't have a screen dedicated to bootloader configuration anymore. We 
had two - this one, and the advanced one.

> You're apparently talking about something that breaks and *then* you
> have to know esoterics. I'm saying now with this current behavior and
> bug under discussion you need to know esoterics to avoid breaking
> Windows, that's how easy it is to break it.

Actually, if I didn't have to know esoterics, I wouldn't have broken it 
in the first place right? :)

Or did I intentionally break windows with Linux installers back in the 
late 90's / early 00's for fun? (No, I don't think so :) )

>>> but now they do, in order to
>>> avoid trouble in custom partitioning. And that's not a ding on just
>>> Anaconda, all the other distributions do this too by exposing these
>>> bootloader structures to the user. And confusion ensues.
>>
>>
>> This all affects folks in multi-boot scenarios, which are the majority case
>> nor really should they be. In 2015 this is an extremely limited user
>> population we're talking about here: an edge case.
>
> I agree with that. I've asked the Desktop WG if they want to be more
> permissive with dual boot and that's a no. There were multiboot (3+)
> discussions in QA a while back and that was soundly rejected as
> nuttastic, and the user is on their own. It's just too
> non-deterministic to support actual multiboot vs dual.

When I say multi-boot though, that is dual-boot inclusive! Would you 
argue otherwise, that dual boot is a special multi-boot scenario that is 
more common / warranted?

~m