Description of Problem: If the user has no floppy drive, then the Red Hat Linux 7.3 Valhalla installer can appear to hang or lock up when trying to make a boot floppy. If there is no floppy device, anaconda should probably not present the option to make a boot floppy. How Reproducible: Always. The problem arises when the user makes a mistake. There is a non-obvious workaround once anaconda becomes stuck. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Remove the floppy drive cable from a standard computer. 2. Install Red Hat Linux. 3. On the page which offers a checkbox, "Skip boot disk creation," then accidentally do NOT mark the checkbox, and instead click Next. 4. Observe an endless attempt to try to make a boot floppy. There is no screen activity or timeout at all. Workaround: A proficient user who knows about Linux can press Ctrl+Alt+F2 to change to a new virtual terminal, and inspect the (ps) process list for the stuck mkbootdisk process, and kill it. Anaconda then will report an error and allow the user to mark the "Skip boot disk creation" checkbox. Expected results: Anaconda should detect the condition of having no floppy drive before trying to make a boot floppy. If that's not possible, and anaconda detects a floppy controller but cannot detect the absence of actual drive devices, then anaconda should nurse the mkbootdisk process with a timeout period. In general: More visual feedback during mkbootdisk would be useful here.
I second this. I made this same mistake but in my case it timed out not horribly long afterwards. The thing is that a floppy drive ~is~ detected in my IBM lappy even when it's not attached. Perhaps a better way would be to have an 'abort' tab or something. -Ali
This screen is changing in the future to be less confusing.
There is now a popup dialog with explanatory text and two buttons: "cancel" and "make boot disk". It should be much more difficult for someone to accidentally invoke mkbootdisk. Furthermore, I tried this out on a machine that has no floppy drive (actually not even a floppy controller). mkbootdisk simply failed with a warning dialog and dropped me back to the main bootdisk screen. Very reasonable behavior. CLOSED->RAWHIDE
Time tracking values updated