[PlanetCCRMA] landing on the Fedora 18 planet

[Fernando Lopez-Lezcano]

On 01/24/2013 06:08 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 11:35 PM, Fernando Lopez-Lezcano
> <nando at ccrma.stanford.edu>  wrote:
>
>> I don't see the point of turning an eminently linear process into a
>> non-linear process.
>>
>> You could order all the selections you have to make before the actual
>> install can proceed in a dependency graph and realize that yes, it does
>> not matter in which order you make some of them. So instead of choosing
>> an arbitrary ordering (which is what pretty much the whole world
>> does[*]) you make the formerly linear process non-linear and confusing
>> to anyone used to a "normal" install process.
>>
>> Which is fine IF there is a rational answer to the question: "what is
>> _gained_ by doing that"???
>>
>> I don't see an answer, and the time you save because (for example) "you
>> can set the root password while the install is happening" does not
>> justify IMO the pain most people will experience.
>
> Well, if you've ever used a recent Ubuntu / Linux Mint installer,
> you'd know where the Anaconda folks were coming from when they
> designed this. You boot the ISO, it checks for network and gets upset
> if it doesn't have it but *will* continue. Then it basically takes off
> with the defaults, assuming there's enough disk space. While it's
> copying stuff to disk, it goes to the network to figure out your time
> zone and whether your hardware clock is local or UTC, usually guesses
> the language and keyboard settings correctly, then asks you to create
> a user account. It's fast, too - faster than the F18 installer, I
> think.
>
> If you need to pay attention to partitions, where they are, etc., then
> the Ubuntu / Linux Mint model breaks down a bit too, though not as
> badly as F18's alpha builds did. But that's what Fedora was going for
> - plug and play, point, click and ship, don't make me think.

Ah, ok, thanks for giving me more context! And no, I have not tried 
Ubuntu/Mint in a long time so I was unaware of the changes.

-- Fernando