Hi, folks! We did the release blocker bug review meeting today, and one of the bugs that came up for discussion was this one:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1134524
The question of whether this bug is a release blocker comes down pretty clearly to the status of the Workstation network install image. That is, the image is clearly busted, so if we care about that image, we should consider the bug a release blocker.
However, the question of whether the Workstation network install image should be considered 'supported' / 'release-blocking' / whatever does not appear to be settled. As I noted in my comment:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1134524#c2
as Workstation was originally designed it seemed clear that the answer was "no, we don't care about netinst", but things seem to have changed somewhat since then, and kalev seemed fairly receptive to blocking on Workstation netinst for F21:
<kalev> adamw: so, my take on this is that I would really like to have a single installation media for Workstation, only the live USB / dvd <kalev> but I also do understand that in some environments, the PXE boot and netinstall are necessary, especially corporate installations <kalev> what I'm envisioning in the future is that we should have a single netinstall for the whole of Fedora, where one could select server or workstation <kalev> but that's not the future we are in right now; I'll try to lobby to make this happen for F22 <kalev> but for F21, I think we'll just have to make do with what we have and make the workstation-specific netinstall work <kalev> so I don't mind having it as a blocking bug
I thought it'd be best to have a clear and publicly-recorded consensus on this, though, and ask the Workstation WG to amend the tech spec if appropriate. So: is it the case as kalev suggests that for F21 at least the Workstation network install image should be considered 'release blocking', i.e. a supported medium of the Workstation product? If so, can the tech spec be updated to reflect that?
Once there's a clear answer to this question, we'll update the release criteria appropriately and determine the blocker status of the bug.
Thanks!
On Wed, 2014-08-27 at 10:28 -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
Hi, folks! We did the release blocker bug review meeting today, and one of the bugs that came up for discussion was this one:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1134524
The question of whether this bug is a release blocker comes down pretty clearly to the status of the Workstation network install image. That is, the image is clearly busted, so if we care about that image, we should consider the bug a release blocker.
I don't think the question is whether we care about the image - I think the question is whether we make the image available!
My strong opinions here are restricted to three things:
1) If made available, the netinst image must work. Otherwise, we're blaming the user for our bugs.
2) What you get going through either path should be identical; installing from the network shouldn't put you into a choose-your-own-adventure path of selecting desktops and optional server components.
This may be more aspirational for F21 than something we can achieve this cycle.
3) The netinst image should not look like an equal alternative to the "live" image (which I think is a misnomer) in the web presentation. Making it seem you need to decide whether you want to try out Fedora first or just install it is deceptive; generally, we want people to just go ahead and get the full image.
I don't have strong opinions about whether we make the netinst image available at all. My vague feeling is that yes, it should be available, because it's more similar to a kickstarted installation of the workstation, which is probably useful have working and tested to give identical results to the live image installation.
- Owen
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On 08/27/2014 02:46 PM, Owen Taylor wrote:
On Wed, 2014-08-27 at 10:28 -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
Hi, folks! We did the release blocker bug review meeting today, and one of the bugs that came up for discussion was this one:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1134524
The question of whether this bug is a release blocker comes down pretty clearly to the status of the Workstation network install image. That is, the image is clearly busted, so if we care about that image, we should consider the bug a release blocker.
I don't think the question is whether we care about the image - I think the question is whether we make the image available!
My strong opinions here are restricted to three things:
- If made available, the netinst image must work. Otherwise,
we're blaming the user for our bugs.
- What you get going through either path should be identical;
installing from the network shouldn't put you into a choose-your-own-adventure path of selecting desktops and optional server components.
This may be more aspirational for F21 than something we can achieve this cycle.
- The netinst image should not look like an equal alternative to
the "live" image (which I think is a misnomer) in the web presentation. Making it seem you need to decide whether you want to try out Fedora first or just install it is deceptive; generally, we want people to just go ahead and get the full image.
I don't have strong opinions about whether we make the netinst image available at all. My vague feeling is that yes, it should be available, because it's more similar to a kickstarted installation of the workstation, which is probably useful have working and tested to give identical results to the live image installation.
The other thing here is that without a netinstall, it becomes very difficult for a site to do multiple deployments easily. I think we want people to be able to write a PXE-boot installer for Workstation and relying on the live ISO might be an impediment to that.
On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 12:03 AM, Stephen Gallagher sgallagh@redhat.com wrote:
The other thing here is that without a netinstall, it becomes very difficult for a site to do multiple deployments easily. I think we want people to be able to write a PXE-boot installer for Workstation and relying on the live ISO might be an impediment to that.
Yes, this is a very important usecase. If we want to cater for target audience 3 and 4 (see https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Workstation/Workstation_PRD#Target_Audience) then we must support PXE booting installers and the ability to add custom kickstart files to these. You can't really expect IT teams to manually install workstations, it needs to be automated, and the live installer doesn't take kickstart files because it just copies whatever on the live media to the target disk.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Gallagher" sgallagh@redhat.com To: desktop@lists.fedoraproject.org Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 11:03:46 PM Subject: Re: IMPORTANT (release blocker): Status of Workstation network install
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On 08/27/2014 02:46 PM, Owen Taylor wrote:
On Wed, 2014-08-27 at 10:28 -0700, Adam Williamson wrote:
Hi, folks! We did the release blocker bug review meeting today, and one of the bugs that came up for discussion was this one:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1134524
The question of whether this bug is a release blocker comes down pretty clearly to the status of the Workstation network install image. That is, the image is clearly busted, so if we care about that image, we should consider the bug a release blocker.
I don't think the question is whether we care about the image - I think the question is whether we make the image available!
My strong opinions here are restricted to three things:
- If made available, the netinst image must work. Otherwise,
we're blaming the user for our bugs.
- What you get going through either path should be identical;
installing from the network shouldn't put you into a choose-your-own-adventure path of selecting desktops and optional server components.
This may be more aspirational for F21 than something we can achieve this cycle.
- The netinst image should not look like an equal alternative to
the "live" image (which I think is a misnomer) in the web presentation. Making it seem you need to decide whether you want to try out Fedora first or just install it is deceptive; generally, we want people to just go ahead and get the full image.
I don't have strong opinions about whether we make the netinst image available at all. My vague feeling is that yes, it should be available, because it's more similar to a kickstarted installation of the workstation, which is probably useful have working and tested to give identical results to the live image installation.
The other thing here is that without a netinstall, it becomes very difficult for a site to do multiple deployments easily. I think we want people to be able to write a PXE-boot installer for Workstation and relying on the live ISO might be an impediment to that.
I agree that we need a network install of the Workstation, so lets figure out how to fix it :)
Christian
On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 02:46:22PM -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
- The netinst image should not look like an equal alternative to the "live" image (which I think is a misnomer) in the web presentation.
This is a good time to fix misnomers -- what would you rather say?
I don't have strong opinions about whether we make the netinst image available at all. My vague feeling is that yes, it should be available, because it's more similar to a kickstarted installation of the workstation, which is probably useful have working and tested to give identical results to the live image installation.
And presumably it would be the preferred starting point for workstation kickstart installs.
On Tue, Sep 02, 2014 at 12:28:23PM -0400, Matthew Miller wrote:
On Wed, Aug 27, 2014 at 02:46:22PM -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
- The netinst image should not look like an equal alternative to the "live" image (which I think is a misnomer) in the web presentation.
This is a good time to fix misnomers -- what would you rather say?
The question of where and how to present came up in the Release Readiness meeting today, so this needs an answer. robyduck in the websites group stands ready to assist, but the current state is here for review/changes:
http://stg.fedoraproject.org/en/get-prerelease#workstation
I don't have strong opinions about whether we make the netinst image available at all. My vague feeling is that yes, it should be available, because it's more similar to a kickstarted installation of the workstation, which is probably useful have working and tested to give identical results to the live image installation.
And presumably it would be the preferred starting point for workstation kickstart installs.
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