Desktop/InstallPath

This page looks at the various paths for installing and setting up Fedora and how we could improve.

Current Process

Running Windows

Try Fedora

Choices are Live CD or Live USB (now with persistence)

Can boot into Fedora image directly to desktop and experiment. Persistent USB allows saving data. There is no setup/install.

Install Fedora, Dual Boot

From inside Fedora, we can invoke Anaconda to install. This takes us through partitioning (where we resize NTFS), time zone, root password, and then copies over the current image. After booting into new system, we have firstboot where we create the user account.

Running Other Linux

We again have many choices. Most people in this case probably want to replace their current Linux with Fedora. This is a complicated case because this raises the issue of preserving user data (/home), which Anaconda doesn't support. Note Ubiquity does.

Running Fedora

Similar to "Other Linux" in current path, but could be improved; see below.

Improving The Process

Primary landing point is get-fedora page. First, in general split clearly into Desktop and Server downloads; this page is mostly concerned with the Desktop. Let's assume that we have a new page *get-fedora-desktop*. Now, we want to emphasize the Live media install path because its advantages are great.

Running Windows

The get-fedora-desktop page autodetects that your User-Agent is Windows. We choose desktop. Since we're running Windows, the process suggests downloading Live USB Creator . From there, control is given over to it. This program then downloads Fedora, and installs to a USB key. User reboots.

From inside the running instance, we can choose to install to the hard drive. There are many questions to cut from this process. Partitioning is unavoidable. There are plans to move time zone into the desktop, since it is a dynamic thing for people who travel. Root password should be eliminated in favor of admin user with sudo. Hostname should probably be merged with first user creation. For network configuration, we should copy over by default from the live USB configuration. In almost all instances this will be DHCP with NetworkManager, but for fringe static IP cases it makes more sense to use the setup the user already had to configure on the Live image.