Bug 613135

Summary: reduced functionality
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Reporter: mike simpson <mikie.simpson>
Component: anacondaAssignee: Anaconda Maintenance Team <anaconda-maint-list>
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG QA Contact: Release Test Team <release-test-team-automation>
Severity: low Docs Contact:
Priority: low    
Version: 6.0   
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2010-07-09 20:29:13 UTC Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description mike simpson 2010-07-09 19:38:12 UTC
Attempting to install RHEL6 i386-workstation-beta2 on laptop with 3 partitions already present on disc:
1x vfat (latitude on reader partition - which i wish to keep)
2x ntfs (windows 7 partitions)
Unable to select the ntfs partitions to use for RHEL6 without using manual partition selection.
Unable to use automatic partition method without losing the vfat partition.
This is a significant decrease in functionality compared to previous anaconda installs in both RHEL and Fedora.
At present i would need to use fedora 13 anaconda (or other partition manager iso) to wipe the ntfs partitions in order to then use the auto-partition option for RHEL 6 anaconda. Seems a bit non-userfriendly considering that a large amount of new computers (with windows preinstalled) come with "rescue" or "diagnostic" partitions which sysadmins may wish to keep whilst getting rid of the main windows partition.

mike

Comment 2 David Cantrell 2010-07-09 20:29:13 UTC
Unfortunately, in this particular case, Fedora will offer more partitioning flexibility than RHEL simply because RHEL is shipping without NTFS support.  When installing RHEL, you will need to make sure there is some unpartitioned space on the target disk in order for the auto partitioning to work, otherwise you will have to go with manual partitioning.

Comment 3 mike simpson 2010-07-10 08:48:11 UTC
Thank you for youe reply.
Not quite sure why not having ntfs support should make any difference in being able to properly edit the partition table at that stage in anaconda. Are you really saying that RHEL has to be able to read the data *inside* the partitions in order to be able to delete them as part of a "choose an area of the disc to install RHEL6 on" auto install? I would have thought that NTFS support wouldn't have any impact on RHEL's ability to interact with the partition table. Please explain?

mike

Comment 4 David Cantrell 2010-07-12 21:34:02 UTC
We don't read the data inside the partition, but to accurately detect it as NTFS, we need ntfsprogs.  ntfsprogs is not part of RHEL, unfortunately.  Specifically, we need the ntfsinfo command and ntfsresize to implement the functionality you were describing.  It's down to a policy decision rather than a technical decision.  Without the tools, we [anaconda] cannot offer the functionality you describe.  Red Hat has made the decision to not ship ntfsprogs as part of RHEL, therefore anaconda will have NTFS support disabled.

Comment 5 mike simpson 2010-07-13 12:43:07 UTC
That makes sense. Thank you for taking the time explaining it to me.

mike