Fedora Account System
Red Hat Associate
Red Hat Customer
Created attachment 2140012 [details] ESP size warning Description of problem: I've used a brand new laptop with Windows 11 preinstalled, shrank the main Windows partition (from Windows), and wanted to install Fedora 44 into dual-boot. I took the most "basic user" approach, just picking the default options in the guide, which means picking "Share disk with other operating systems" and hitting Next. Yet, I was shown an warning dialog saying: > Your /boot/efi partition is less than 500 MiB which is lower than recommended for a normal Fedora install. > Click 'Next' again to proceed despite these warnings. See the attached screenshot. I think this is a poor user experience (especially for a Windows user, who has not much experience with Linux). I see the following problems: 1. The warning says that 500 MiB is required, but doesn't say how large my current partition is. Am I close enough? Really far from it? I just don't know. - In reality, the default ESP size for Windows 11 seems to be 472 MB ~ 450 MiB. 2. Is this a real problem? What should I do? I just don't know. - Personally I'm not sure why the ESP recommendation targets 500 MiB, because on all my machines, the files occupy 50MB at most (Windows+Fedora combined). So there might be a reassuring message that is not under say 200MB, everything should work just fine in most cases. 3. Why am I getting warnings when I asked the installer to pick the best approach? This is quite confusing, because since I'm not configuring anything myself, I trust the installer to do the right job. Why is it warning me then? Why it didn't pick a different approach (e.g. a second ESP)? - In the case of a high-profile dual-boot OS like Windows 10/11, I think anaconda should be tailored to just pick the best default. If reusing the current 450 MiB ESP is the best approach, then don't warn about it needlessly (at least in this "share disk with other OS" path). If creating a second ESP is the best approach, then just do it. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): F44 Workstation Final anaconda 44.30-2.fc44 anaconda-webui 68-1.fc44 How reproducible: probably always Steps to Reproduce: 1. buy a new laptop with a default Win11 preinstalled 2. shrink the main Win11 partition (from Windows) 3. boot F44 Workstation and install it into dual-boot, using the default values
Created attachment 2140013 [details] anaconda.log
Created attachment 2140014 [details] anaconda-webui.log
Created attachment 2140015 [details] dbus.log
Created attachment 2140016 [details] journal.log
Created attachment 2140017 [details] packaging.log
Created attachment 2140018 [details] program.log
Created attachment 2140019 [details] storage.log
Currently indeed anaconda when it detects an existing ESP on the dual boot scenario, it tries to reuse it, no matter the size. https://github.com/rhinstaller/anaconda/blob/2ed79f7cadde4bc5a93998a29e4a1442e76e2472/pyanaconda/modules/storage/partitioning/automatic/utils.py#L347 Related to the anaconda's size requirement for the ESP for 500MB here is the Fedora change: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/BiggerESP About the suggestion to not share the ESP with windows, rather create a new one, I take the proposal, we need to investigate the implications before going forward.
(In reply to Katerina Koukiou from comment #8) > Related to the anaconda's size requirement for the ESP for 500MB here is the > Fedora change: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/BiggerESP Thanks, this is very useful. It says: > Windows 10 and 11 allocates an ESP of at least 500MiB. Which is not true at least in my case (latest Thinkpads preinstalled from Lenovo). It is 450 MiB instead. Maybe the number can vary according to circumstances? Or Microsoft changed it recently? If needed, I can do some experiments with a completely fresh user install, if that changes anything. > About the suggestion to not share the ESP with windows, rather create a new > one, I take the proposal, we need to investigate the implications before > going forward. Thanks. In my personal opinion, it would make sense to just reuse the existing ESP, and not warn about it. E.g. disable the warning if installing into dual-boot AND the ESP >=400 MiB (or 450MiB, the logs should tell you an exact number). Because it does satisfy the spirit of the proposal (speaks about sharing ESP with modern Windows), even though not the exact size number (which might be a mistake in the proposal itself). Creating the ESP from scratch would still create 500 MiB partition, just the warning would be adjusted in this dual-boot case.
Also, talking to Richard might be helpful.
@Richard, it seems that more Windows systems than expected in the Change https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/BiggerESP have the ESP size lower than 500M. Could you provide some input: 1) Can we lower the recommended size to 400? What would be the impact? 2) Does a user need to care how much *free space* is left, when adding a new system, or is it more about the *total size* of the partition? 3) What you would recommend to a less experienced user with 400M ESP size willing to install a dual boot system - to proceed with the installation or to repartition the system? 4*) Do you know some Lenovo folks who can clarify what was the decision regarding pre-installed laptops they setup and what are their plans going further? If the size they setup comes from some documented heuristics, maybe we should rely on a similar one?
> Can we lower the recommended size to 400? What would be the impact? We could; although the everything in the BiggerESP page is still true. It's most possible that Lenovo changed the Windows default on their preload -- it would be interesting to wipe the exact same machine and do a fresh install of win11 and see what it picks without the Lenovo preload getting involved. > Do you know some Lenovo folks who can clarify what was the decision regarding pre-installed laptops they setup I certainly could find out; I did think 500MiB was part of the WHQL cert these days so I'm a bit surprised it's not at least that.
I can provide some updated numbers after my experiments today. Lenovo-preinstalled disk layout: $ lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,FSTYPE,FSVER,LABEL,PARTLABEL /dev/nvme0n1 NAME SIZE FSTYPE FSVER LABEL PARTLABEL nvme0n1 953.9G ├─nvme0n1p1 450M vfat FAT32 SYSTEM EFI System Partition ├─nvme0n1p2 16M Microsoft reserved partition ├─nvme0n1p3 951.4G BitLocker 2 X1CARBONG14 Windows 5/7/2026 Basic data partition └─nvme0n1p4 2G ntfs WinRE_DRV Basic data partition A clean Windows 11 25H2 installation disk layout: $ lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,FSTYPE,FSVER,LABEL,PARTLABEL /dev/nvme0n1 NAME SIZE FSTYPE FSVER LABEL PARTLABEL nvme0n1 953.9G ├─nvme0n1p1 200M vfat FAT32 Basic data partition ├─nvme0n1p2 16M Microsoft reserved partition ├─nvme0n1p3 952.9G BitLocker 2 X1CARBONG14 C: 5/12/2026 Basic data partition └─nvme0n1p4 735M ntfs When I reported this bug, I assumed that the Lenovo-preinstalled layout is the same as the default Windows layout. Unfortunately, Win11 (25H2) still defaults to a 200 MiB ESP :-( That is even documented here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/configure-uefigpt-based-hard-drive-partitions?view=windows-11#system-partition My chatbot claims that many vendors enlarge the ESP to store their pre-boot diagnostic tools, boot logos, etc. No idea whether it's true. Since I learned that 450 MiB is not a Windows default, but just a Lenovo default (and other vendors probably have a different default size), I guess the best course of action here would be to define the "minimum acceptable ESP size for dual boot" value (because for dual boot, the user most likely can't easily change the partition size). If ESP is smaller than that, either show a very clear warning message (including consequences, e.g. "you might not be able to update firmware in the future") or create a second ESP just for Fedora right away. If ESP is larger than that, but still smaller than the default 500MiB value, show a more reassuring warning message (e.g. "Your ESP is 450MiB instead of the minimum recommended 500MiB, and we recommend you to make it larger. But if you can't easily change the partition size, e.g. because of a dual-boot OS, this size should still work sufficiently well."). If you want to go this route, the question, of course, is, what this "minimum acceptable ESP size for dual boot" size should be...