Bug 221775

Description of problem:

There is no "install everything".  Simply, this means I must spend time trying
to recreate FC4's installation -- THIS IS A HUGE WASTE OF MY TIME AND IS ERROR
PRONE!!!!  Here's why ...

With FC4, I could install a system with "everything".  I am preparing dozens of
systems for use as webservers, development servers, etc..  When I install a
system, I check the system before bringing it into production.  ***BEFORE*** it
goes into production is when I want to test everything to make sure it is working.

Some of you have the bone-head idea that we just "add packages as necessary".

Who has the patience to click 3000 mouse clicks (not to mention its error
proneness in missing one or two packages, and its non-reproducibility)?

Who wants to take a running production system and (later on) add a huge amount
of integration risk by adding lots new packages?  I don't want to add packages
as my users request them.  Thus, all the software needs to be added at once: at
the beginning, during installation time.

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=189398&threshold=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=15596807

I read on slashdot that you believe that getting rid of "install everything"
will reduce the load on your update servers.  If you had a detailed,
step-by-step process on setting up one's own update server and clients, then I
would certainly set up my own update server (improving my update response,
decreasing your load).  But the documentation at
"http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/mirror/en" is poor in that it is incomplete and
it worries more about doing tasks as a non-root user and typos in rsync commands
rather than worrying about the completeness and robustness of the end result,
i.e., getting an update server working, updating itself, and updating client
systems.

In other words, why should I trust a roll-your-own update server with poor
documentation?  What's the benefit of choosing a solution that (1) I'm not sure
if it is going to work, (2) the Redhat documentation doesn't give me the
confidence it is going to work, (3) the penalty for failure is not being certain
if updates are done correctly?

You shoot yourself in the foot by providing poor documentation.

Not to mention, there is no current documentation on anaconda, nor is there
documentation on the format of the kickstart file (if you search the Redhat
website, you'll find kickstart formats for the Redhat 7.1, but nothing current).
 So there is little confidence one can get from on-line documentation.

How to reproduce the poor documentation?  Go to:

        1. http://redhat.com

        2. Click "Support" at the top of the page.

        3. Enter "anaconda" in the search box, then click Search.

        4. On the right, under "Narrow Your Search / Search Categories", click
"Documentation".

You'll see the the links all point to very old Redhat releases (e.g., Redhat 7.1).

So while there might be some conflicts in the package installation of "install
everything" for FC6, your solution could be: still provide "install everything",
but remove conflicts and document the conflicts in the release notes.

IN SUMMARY: An FC6 installation requires about 30 minutes of installation from
CDs, then ***a couple days trying*** to sort out packages and test everything
... and then the systems created by the installation are all different because
much was done manually (a really poor QA problem).  In contrast, the FC4
installation required a couple hours and then one had a complete system -- as
was consistent across installations and the QA was better.

OR SAID DIFFERENTLY: Everyone else (including Microsoft and Adobe) has managed
to distribute CDs for their software and is able to get a consistent
installation across users (assuming the users want to install all of the
software in the CD bundle), but Redhat now as taken a huge step backwards in
installation reliability: they've made much of the installation process a manual
process where each user must craft their own idea on what "everything" is, each
user must *invent* their own procedure to do this (since it isn't document on
the Fedora website), and then each user will do it inconsistently -- even the
same user will do it inconsistently across his/her installations.

The is no reason you can't put back "install everything".  However, if you
insist upon leaving out "install everything", they many of us will have to find
another Linux distribution because: (1) Fedora installations take too much work,
(2) Fedora installations are error prone, (3) everyone else (other distros)
seems to figure out how to make a useful distro except for Redhat.

Clearly, no one at Redhat is thinking about how to roll out dozens/scores of
Fedora systems that are all consistently, completely, and reliably installed. 
You seem to believe that Fedora is for the hobbyist/home user who installs only
**one system** and he/she has no worries about integration risk or error
proneness.  Given all the manual work after FC6 CD installation and all the
manual fix-up work later on because of errors/inconsistencies, how can RHEL be
any good if Fedora installation is all screwed up?

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

FC6

How reproducible:

Just install FC6.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install FC6.  There is no "install everything" option.
2.
3.
  
Actual results:
The FC6 produced an incomplete installation with lots of software yet to be
installed.

Expected results:
There would be an "install everything" in the installation script.

Additional info:
See bug 201911 for a related problem with "@ everything" no longer working in
the kickstart file.