New user : installer feedback

Ask Fedora
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Hey all, i hesitated posting that here as it’s just my personal feedback not worth very much but i have to say, trying fedora for the first time, i have found the experience so far quite great (KDE flavor), EXCEPT the installer.

I have to say this is the most convoluted / complicated installer i have seen in the last 20 years on any OS and it’s the first time in decades i wasn’t even sure if i had wiped a partition i intended to keep when i validated the thing (since i have image backup, i went “oh well let’s see”.

I mean, partitioning a disk with cgdisk is a piece of cake comparing to trying to understand what we are doing / what is happening in the fedora installer :confused:

It’s a bit sad as it’s the only “negative” point in an otherwise great experience so far.

I almost gave up on trying fedora because this installer IS the first thing you see and it’s a pretty rough welcome.

To explain a bit further what i meant with cgdisk is that i recently had to use it when i was trying to create an android x86 install on one of my machine. Yes it’s a powerful/ complicated tool but it makes sense.

In the fedora installer, it felt like being in a car on autopilot with no clue of the destination (what the installer was going to actually do to my drive) and searching why the steering wheel is missing for 10 minutes then realizing you have to actually drive the car using your radio buttom instead here (if that makes any sense).

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Welcome Flo.

I’d say your personal feedback is more than worthy - it’s only by finding out what new users are experiencing that the product as a whole can get better.

Which version of Fedora were you installing - I’m assuming 42 but as 43 is in testing maybe you grabbed a beta ISO of Fedora 43?

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I have to agree, the F41/42 installer’s partition section is most unclear, I have muddled through three times now and am no closer to really understanding it.

I’d strongly recommend taking a look at the Mint installer’s equivalent as it does this excellently.

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I think you’re undervaluing your feedback. To me, you’re exactly the kind of user whose experiences are important to learn from.

You didn’t say which partitioning scheme you chose at installation time, the default, custom, or the blivet-gui. The latter two do have some element of mystery to them, imo. But to be fair, they involve the most confusing aspect of installing any OS.

Hopefully, some of this will be made less so with the new, improved f43 browser-based version of the installer.

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Hey, thanks for getting back to me :slight_smile:
It was still version 42 so i did not see the improvements.

The situation is that i already had an efi partition and had resized my partitions already to leave left free space on my drive to install fedora and wanted to use that.

The first issue is that the “default / automatic” selection does not seem to tell you at all what it’s going to do. Wipe ? take the free space ? Without that information, in my opinion, it’s as if it’s not an option as it would be reckless to let a partitionning tool work blindly on your drive.

I eventually used custom as i had no idea what the third “blivet-gui” option could be and did not dare click something unclear on a partitioning tool. (Automatic & custom i understand, what could a third option possibly be about ?)

Then, i did not realize that in the summary page, you do not see free space at the same place as partition (in between them on the disk) AND that all disk partitions (including the partitions of the USB installer) are all one after the other with no clear distinction. (Yes, you can see the /dev/something if you look closely but it’s not really appearant).

This resulted in me at first believing the partition on my USB installation disk was the actual free space on my internal ssd & trying to use that as / before going “wait, why is that already partitioned? something is not right there”.

I eventually created the needed partitions but was thinking "why is it forcing me to say size, how do i use the full space left (putting nothing was the solution but it was quite unclear).

Then finally, i was quite unsure of myself due to having to type each mount point fully manually ( /boot/efi , … ) .

I understood what i was doing but it’s been so long since i saw an installer asking you to do that in such a manual way that it made me doubt everything again. I was like “it can’t be right, i must have misundestood something”.

(Ah yes, and that “validate” button on the top left added 3 minutes of confusion at the start of the process too).

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I have to confess it’s been a year or two since I last saw the anaconda installer running and only have vague memories of it. However, I am aware that the installer is undergoing a re-write which should become public facing in fedora 43 which should be released in a few weeks, showstoppers permitting.

I’ve also not seen the new version of the installer myself yet either, so I can’t tell you if your experience would’ve been better, easier or simply less confusing with the updated and improved version. It’s all completely valid feedback, however, and I’m pretty confident in stating that everyone here would like the onboarding process to be as slick as possible. Evidently, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.

I’ll have a poke around and see if I can find an appropriate place to stick a link to this post so that your feedback makes it to the correct eyeballs.

Thanks for the write-up and welcome! :slight_smile:

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Indeed. Fedora 42 Workstation used the new installer, but all the other flavours of F42 (including the KDE Plasma edition which OP is using) had the old one.

KDE Plasma edition users will get the new installer as of Fedora 43.

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Hi,

I am a PO of the RHEL Installer team which is developing the Anaconda installer and we are indeed interested in a feedback from the community. Thank you for taking time on posting it.

As others mentioned in the thread Anaconda is in the process of migrating from the GTK based UI to a new WebUI, so if you have time, please take a look at the new UI and see if it addresses some of the concerns.

You can see the detailed overview in Reimagining the Fedora Linux installer: Anaconda's new Web UI - Fedora Magazine

At the end of the article you can also find some screencast demos highlighting the typical installation cases.

The new WebUI will be shipped in all Fedora 43 LIve images (including Fedora 43 KDE). The Fedora Server and Fedora netinstall images will still use old UI. The plan is to rollout WebUI there in F44 and F45 reelase cycles.

See also Anaconda WebUI: Progress Update and Roadmap – Fedora Community Blog

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That is a bit of shame. See https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Blivet-gui how it would have been looking like.

Also, it may also have been unclear that nothing is changed on disk until you much later commit to installing the system. The new installer, however, may change the partition immediately.

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I skimmed the Fedora Magazine article and looked at most of the pictures. I know it’s in a virtual machine but there was no apparent indication that you could install over multiple physical disks, I might be in the minority but I run a system with my OS install on one disk and my home “partition“ on another drive.

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I think your use-case is covered by the mount points assignment scenario (the third demo).

While the demo shows how it can be done with a single disk, the second disk will be visible in the same list of targets. You will be able to choose the destination for each mount point separately and run the installation.

There is also a specific “/home reuse” scenario if you want to reinstall the system on top of already existing one preserving only the /home partition as is.

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Indeed, i think that was a big part of the confusion, the fact that all the settings are there in one single page makes it look like (at least to me) you commit & it will start partitioning / installing right after the first page. Without that, i would probably have clicked on next & see if auto would do what i wanted on its own (probably the case).

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I consider it a real barrier to Fedora use to have a person who’s obviously very familiar with OS installations and disk partitioning, the latter to the degree that they feel comfortable using an interactive partitioner like gdisk/cgdisk, who is confused by an OS installer. I agree with @vekruse below who posted that it is a shame you didn’t try the Blivet-gui partitioner. That partitioning method seems to me to be more in your wheelhouse.

Unfortunately, you’ve managed to catch things in a bit of a flux. As you’ve now learned: Workstation, which up until f42 was the sole flagship version of Fedora for the general user, has moved on from the Anaconda installer by default, so its status seems to no longer justify a dedicated chapter/section in the Fedora documentation. For f42, the KDE Plasma version was elevated to identical status as Workstation, but didn’t get the WebUI installer version that Workstation did. As far as I can tell, there’s no way for a new Fedora user to know this. :slight_smile:

I’m going to suggest that when f43 Plasma is released in a few weeks, you go to the trouble to do a fresh installation with the new installer while your current experience is so fresh in your mind. I’m pretty sure you can keep your /home partition from your current one if you do so, although I would back this, and perhaps your EFI partition since you seemed to want to keep this, up. This time try the Blivet-gui method, and give the Fedora installer developers (and us here) your feedback once more. I can’t help but believe that it’d be very useful.

Thanks!

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The new one looks indeed much clearer to me, i will test it as soon as it’s live.

Actually, you mentioned something else i forgot there with “workstation”. I know that fedora just upgraded the kde variant (that’s why i wanted to test it) so things might still be in flux over there too but the naming is quite messy in my opinion.

On the homepage , you have both “Workstation” and KDE desktop.

There is not a single mention of “Gnome” under the workstation description.

I knew after thinking for a bit (and doublechecking) it was “probably” the gnome variant but the current naming looks very 90s microsoft with the “for workstation” version for “pro / dev / people who work with their device” and the lower tiers “for desktop” one for user with less demanding needs.

I know most people probably know better but still, it confused me for a few seconds when i thought “well what if i want the full workstation version with kde” and not the fedora lite one :smiley: .

But there, i fully agree that it may be on my side, decades of windows edition naming probably influenced the way i see editions names.

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Interestingly, there is a reference to GNOME when you mouse over the “Get Fedora” at the top of the homepage…

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But not in the actual product page itself for Workstation, nor in the “product boxes” on the homepage - I would agree that there should be.

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That’s the thing, though, how can most people new to Fedora know this without being able to read it in the overview descriptions or by selecting the “Learn More” link in the overview? This is why new user feedback can be so useful. It’s pretty clear, to me at least, that this needs to be revisited.

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This can probably be reported (or contributed as a patch) to Issues · Fedora Websites and Apps · GitLab

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I didn’t think about it “that much” when installing but rereading it, even the descriptions are quite “different” & reenforce that first view i had.

Gnome/workstation talks about tools for dev / maker while KDE says “more personal”.

From the pov of a less technical user, if i want to install a linux distro because windows 10 is end of life or something and choose fedora.

Well if it’s for youtube / social media / email & browsing, i believe the description pushes you toward kde there.

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All of this may well have been intentional. It is a fact that Gnome is less user customization friendly than KDE.

I’ve been using Gnome DEs in its various versions for as long as they’ve existed, but this past August, when I bought a new laptop, I decided for the first time that I’d install the KDE Plasma Edition. Just as an aside, I used the Blivet-gui for the partitioner, and despite being pretty experienced myself, I did run into some questions when it came to creating btrfs subvolumes. It really surprised me, but, thinking back to two months ago, I remember seeing why what happened happened. :slight_smile:

Anyway, I have almost no prior experience with KDE, so I’m still in the learning phase and have done almost zero customization. Whatever customization is available in Gnome is spread across Gnome Extensions, Gnome Settings, Gnome Tweaks, and the dconf configuration app. Things like this are less complicated with KDE.

For KDE, simply having a (configurable) Task Manager panel widget and a native App Indicator are pluses, imo; for the latter, in Gnome, you have to add a Gnome Extension, and even then it’s a kludge. Also, being able to access so many customization aspects directly through one place, System Settings, is a big plus. I could go on.

The key point I’m trying to make is that it makes sense to me to direct new users to KDE vs Gnome. But, that said, it should be made clear to new users that neither DE will have access to more Fedora capabilities than the other also.

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On a personal level, i fully agree, i would much rather send my grandmother if i HAD to choose on vanilla KDE than vanilla gnome, i believe it would lead to less tech help calls but i forced myself to remove my bias there as many people truly are of the opinion that gnome is simpler / easier (and that is a perfectly valid pov).

Fedora being historically gnome, don’t believe the wording is meant to say “Gnome is complicated, KDE is simpler” even if i personally agree.