CentOS - Jul 2015 - dual-booting <- Re: installing Cents os server 7.0

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 10:42 AM, ken <gebser at mousecar.com> wrote:
> I guess it depends on one's definition of "support".  Your
definition seems
> to be more demanding... which often is a good thing, urging Linux on to be
> better.
>
> Me, I didn't use the word "support" at all.  I only said that
I've done it
> on every one of my Linux systems since 1992 (except Raspberry Pi's). 
Yes, a
> little manual work was needed on the Windows side, but this was well
> documented and frankly not that hard.  Since I've done it-- numerous
times--
> I'm not readily persuaded that it's impossible to do.
It's effectively impossible. Very few people know how to do this.
Fewer care to learn when there are platforms that make this much
easier.

> Sure, it would be nice during the install process to simply click a button
> for "Yes, I want to dual-boot with Windows (or whatever)" and it
would just
> happen.  Yeah, I'd like that.  On the other hand, what other (i.e.,
> commercial) OSs support/allow/permit dual-booting?
Windows explicitly permits dual boot with Windows. So does OS X, but
in addition can even set up the system to accept a Windows
installation.

So I personally think it's embarrassing that RH/CentOS/Fedora can't
reliably install N+1 after version N, and for both of them to be
bootable; *and* for both of them to do kernel updates that cause their
respective boot entries to be automatically updated (and visible to
the user) as well. That part is completely busted in GRUB because
instead of using configfile to point to distro specific grub.cfg, it
creates a whole new boot entry for that first distro instance in a
grub.cfg that's only available to the 2nd instance. It's an ugly mess,
bad UX all around.

>Given all the code for
> Linux is readily available to Apple and MS, it's much, much simper for
them.
> The exact opposite is true for Linux developers.
Yeah I don't buy that. The way Windows, OS X, and Linux boot are not
secrets. It's well understood by those who know this, but getting
developers to fix GRUB is what's hard. I explained to GRUB upstream
what needs to be done to get a Mac to boot OS X properly from GRUB,
but no one cares to actually do the work. So not only does that not
get done, but the old code that wrongly puts in bad OS X menu entry
that panics the system, isn't removed. It's 2x the bad UX of two Linux
systems coexisting. And has nothing to do with how proprietary those
other systems are.

And, to underscore it again, Linux code is available to Linux
developers, and yet the most common outcome for Linux A + Linux B dual
boot is Linux B literally *enjoys* stepping on Linux A.

The cooperation that exists with the kernel? It's nearly the opposite
level of cooperation when it comes to OS installation and booting.
Every distro reinvents the wheel, and has zero concern about how
hostile their installer is to an existing Linux installation that
isn't their own. Hell, the RH/CentOS/Fedora eco system borks it's own
prior installations!

So it has nothing to do with code availability. It has to do with not
caring (and to some degree the resources to care).

> With VMs solid and much more useful and with deep market penetration, the
> need for dual-booting seems to be fading anyway.
Sure, but increasingly it's Linux being put into that VM. Not the
other way around. And that's due to things like dual-GPU systems
simply working better, automatically, with no fuss, on Windows and OS
X. This is at least variable on Linux, still. And yes a lot of this is
because of proprietary behaviors on the part of Nvidia and AMD. So the
reasons why this is difficult on free software are all valid, but it's
also valid when users just give up and use a different platform
because they don't have to deal with these sorts of problems.

-- 
Chris Murphy

On Jul 2, 2015, at 11:32 AM, Chris Murphy <lists at colorremedies.com>
wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 10:42 AM, ken <gebser at mousecar.com> wrote:
> 
>> Yes, a
>> little manual work was needed on the Windows side, but this was well
>> documented and frankly not that hard.  Since I've done it--
numerous times--
>> I'm not readily persuaded that it's impossible to do.
> 
> It's effectively impossible. Very few people know how to do this.
Relatively few people know how to write C programs, but that doesn?t make it
"effectively impossible? to write them, nor does it mean that CentOS can?t
run C programs.
> Fewer care to learn when there are platforms that make this much
> easier.
If you want Ubuntu, you know where to get it.

Oh, and let me point out that Windows doesn?t resize Linux partitions, so please
don?t give me any kind of argument that this is a necessary step before we can
get to the Glorious Year of Linux.

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 4:12 PM, Warren Young <wyml at etr-usa.com>
wrote:
> On Jul 2, 2015, at 11:32 AM, Chris Murphy <lists at
colorremedies.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 10:42 AM, ken <gebser at mousecar.com>
wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, a
>>> little manual work was needed on the Windows side, but this was
well
>>> documented and frankly not that hard.  Since I've done it--
numerous times--
>>> I'm not readily persuaded that it's impossible to do.
>>
>> It's effectively impossible. Very few people know how to do this.
>
> Relatively few people know how to write C programs, but that doesn?t make
it "effectively impossible? to write them, nor does it mean that CentOS
can?t run C programs.
Bad analogy. Car doesn't come with a CD player. Does the dealer
support your user installed CD player? No. Your CD player, you
installed it, you support it, or whoever you paid to install it can
support it, not the car manufacturer or dealer's problem.

And the same here, dual boot is not a supported feature on
RHEL/CentOS, the piece to enable that is missing and the user has to
install that to make it possible. User supported. Not distro
supported.

>
>> Fewer care to learn when there are platforms that make this much
>> easier.
>
> If you want Ubuntu, you know where to get it.
Ubuntu fails to boot UEFI+Secure Boot Windows 8.x as well. For some
lame reason, only openSUSE has the secure boot patches for GRUB, I've
found them no where else so far even though they've been around for
years.
>
> Oh, and let me point out that Windows doesn?t resize Linux partitions, so
please don?t give me any kind of argument that this is a necessary step before
we can get to the Glorious Year of Linux.
> _______________________________________________
No, the list of requirements to get there is quite long still. Android
arrived at rapid success in the "everybody else can use it" where
Linux on the desktop still struggles with catering to users who think
"everybody else" is a moron because they want a dumbed down system and
therefore they don't matter. So as long as "everybody" doesn't
matter
and only the current user base does matter, the Linux desktop market
isn't ever going to grow.

And no it's not just about dual boot. It's also the never ending
regressions that break things. It isn't any one thing, and that's why
this is hard. But the dual booting thing is pretty much completely
figured out, yet it's essentially inaccessible because that knowledge
hasn't been translated through development to enable "everyone" to
benefit.


-- 
Chris Murphy