QA:Testcase USB fmw

Associated release criterion
This test case is associated with the Basic_Release_Criteria#Initialization_requirements release criterion. If you are doing release validation testing, a failure of this test case may be a breach of that release criterion. If so, please file a bug and nominate it as blocking the appropriate milestone, using the blocker bug nomination page.

Description

This test verifies that a Fedora ISO image can be written to a USB stick with Fedora Media Writer, and successfully boots and installs.

Data loss
Any data on the USB stick used for this test is likely to be destroyed. Please do not use a stick whose contents you need to keep.

Setup

1. Ensure you have a USB stick larger than the image file, and whose contents you can afford to lose (the contents of the stick will be destroyed as a part of the test).
2. Install Fedora Media Writer:
   • On Fedora, install the mediawriter RPM package:

     sudo dnf install mediawriter

   • To test Flatpak installation, install it from Flathub.
   • On Windows, visit the project download page, download the latest release and install it.
   • On macOS, visit the project download page and download the dmg file.
3. Start Fedora Media Writer

How to test

1. Decide whether you want to write a stable Fedora release image, or an unstable release image (Alpha, Beta, or even some nightly image):
• If you want to write a stable image, skip to the next step.
• (optional) If you want to write an unstable image, you either need to download it manually and use the Custom image menu item to select it in FMW, or you need to create a custom download list and include the link to that image in it. This is how to do it:
  1. Download releases.json
  2. Edit the file, add a new entry to the list (after the initial bracket) with a link to desired Fedora pre-release ISO and be sure to set proper version, for example:

     [{"link": "https://.../Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-42-1.1.iso", "subvariant": "Workstation", "version": "42", "arch": "x86_64", "variant": "Workstation", "sha256": "HASH", "size": "SIZE"},
     ...lines omitted...
     ]
     

     Please note that the image filename must contain important identifiers, like Workstation/Server/Everything, Live/DVD/netinst, etc. Replace HASH with the hash computed by sha256sum FILE.iso, and SIZE with size printed by ls -l FILE.iso.

  3. Run the FMW from command line pointing to your custom download list: $ mediawriter --releasesUrl file:///path/to/edited/releases.json
  4. You should see your specified image in the list.
2. Let it download an image of your preference (try a random spin/version/architecture)
3. Write it to your flash drive
4. Boot the system from the USB stick. For Intel images, if possible, try both:
   • UEFI boot
   • BIOS boot
5. For validation testing, and optionally for other testing, if the image is installable:
   • Start the installer
   • Proceed with the installation
6. Verify the installation is fully operational
7. Start Fedora Media Writer again in the original system you started testing in
   • Insert the flash drive you used now
   • Restore its partition layout inside the tool

Expected Results

1. The USB stick should be wiped before being written with the image
2. The image should download without error
3. Writing should finish without error
4. The stick should boot without error
   • Media consistency verification before the actual boot should end without error.
5. For validation testing, and optionally for other testing:
   • The installer should start without error
   • The installation should finish successfully
   • The installed system should boot properly. Note that problems after boot that do not seem to be related to writing the image to a USB stick are likely out of the scope of this test case, though they may count as failures of another test case. If you observe the same failure booting the image in a virtual machine or from an optical disc, it is likely not a failure of this test case.
6. While restoring, you should get a notification that you can restore the drive. After restoring, the drive should contain a single FAT32 partition spanning over the whole drive.