Re: F38 proposal: Modernize Live Media (System-Wide Change proposal)

2022-10-19 Thread Colin Walters


On Tue, Oct 18, 2022, at 4:35 PM, Ben Cotton wrote:
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/ModernizeLiveMedia

Just for reference, today Fedora CoreOS uses a different implementation of this:
https://github.com/coreos/fedora-coreos-config/tree/testing-devel/overlay.d/05core/usr/lib/dracut/modules.d/35coreos-live
See specifically
https://github.com/coreos/fedora-coreos-config/blob/testing-devel/overlay.d/05core/usr/lib/dracut/modules.d/35coreos-live/live-generator
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Re: F38 proposal: Modernize Live Media (System-Wide Change proposal)

2022-10-19 Thread Frank R Dana Jr.
> With
> {{package|livesys-scripts}}, those scripts have been simplified and
> turned into systemd services that activate only in live environments.

Just to confirm, will live-media-only these systemd services all be contained 
within a package (either livesys-scripts, or some other RPM), and will that 
package be kept dependent-less so it can be uninstalled at any point if it's 
not needed?

I'm just picturing all of these new "systemd services that activate only in 
live environments" possibly ending up on _installed_ systems. (Particularly 
since the supported desktop installation method is to install from the live 
media.)

Not a problem if they can just be `dnf remove`-d, but less great if they 
clutter up `systemctl list-unit-files` with a bunch of useless, perma-disabled 
units that can't (easily) be removed because some core package either contains 
or Requires: them. systemd _already_ comes with a **large** default collection 
of unit files.
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Re: F38 proposal: Modernize Live Media (System-Wide Change proposal)

2022-10-19 Thread Michael J Gruber
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 10:43 PM Ben Cotton  
> 
> Neal, Matt, what is the rationale for enabling persistence for the default
> boot option? I have mixed opinions about this. One of the benefits of a
> Live image, as we use it today, is that it's always the same/fresh. If I
> use it and then hand it over to a friend/colleague, I don't need to worry
> that some personal files (like a browser history) were left behind. I also
> don't need to worry that I (or the previous user) made some changes which
> would negatively impact the installation process or my user environment
> (like configuring a different keymap, or installing some updates). It's
> always as the creators intended. With the proposed Change, suddenly I need
> to care and need to worry.

Yes, default should be the pristine image, at least as long no persistent 
overlay exists.

> My impression is that currently persistence use is basically non-existent.
> Our well-advertised tools like Fedora Media Writer don't support it. Even

And that is exactly why.

I used to use it quite a alot - and be it just selecting the right keyboard 
layout for trying out an RC or such on various boxes which all happened to have 
the same keyboard layout, being in the same country.

Another use case is as a handy rescue option, where - again - I might want to 
set up my environment (home overlay), or even trying out selective updates 
between RCs, say for QA purposes (system overlay).
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Re: F38 proposal: Modernize Live Media (System-Wide Change proposal)

2022-10-19 Thread Matthew Miller
On Wed, Oct 19, 2022 at 09:22:23AM +0200, Vitaly Zaitsev via devel wrote:
> I don't think that persistence by default is a good idea, because
> modern USB-flash drives are very unreliable and don't have a
> wear-cell balancer, so it will wear out very quickly for some
> frequently modified files.

Yeah — lots of very-low-quality flash drives out there. Ran into this just
trying to get decent ones for give-away swag.

I expect this to get worse and worse, as more and more people just use
dropbox and other cloud storage for file transfer and random storage. Once
again we're increasingly a niche case.

(It is, on the other hand, easier and easier to get really good MicroSD
cards for relatively cheap. SanDisk High Endurance for ten bucks. But not
quite cheap enough for giveways. Maybe the giveway item should be a branded
card reader...) 

-- 
Matthew Miller

Fedora Project Leader
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Re: F38 proposal: Modernize Live Media (System-Wide Change proposal)

2022-10-19 Thread Vitaly Zaitsev via devel

On 18/10/2022 22:35, Ben Cotton wrote:

There should be new options for resetting the persistent overlay and
booting with no persistence. The default options should boot with
persistence and setup of persistence should work.


I don't think that persistence by default is a good idea, because modern 
USB-flash drives are very unreliable and don't have a wear-cell 
balancer, so it will wear out very quickly for some frequently modified 
files.


Persistence is a good option, but should only be enabled at the user's 
choice.


--
Sincerely,
  Vitaly Zaitsev (vit...@easycoding.org)
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Re: F38 proposal: Modernize Live Media (System-Wide Change proposal)

2022-10-19 Thread Neal Gompa
On Wed, Oct 19, 2022 at 2:57 AM Kamil Paral  wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 10:43 PM Ben Cotton  wrote:
>>
>> There should be new options for resetting the persistent overlay and
>> booting with no persistence. The default options should boot with
>> persistence and setup of persistence should work.
>
>
> Neal, Matt, what is the rationale for enabling persistence for the default 
> boot option? I have mixed opinions about this. One of the benefits of a Live 
> image, as we use it today, is that it's always the same/fresh. If I use it 
> and then hand it over to a friend/colleague, I don't need to worry that some 
> personal files (like a browser history) were left behind. I also don't need 
> to worry that I (or the previous user) made some changes which would 
> negatively impact the installation process or my user environment (like 
> configuring a different keymap, or installing some updates). It's always as 
> the creators intended. With the proposed Change, suddenly I need to care and 
> need to worry.
>

Hmm, that makes sense. The main reason I was thinking of it was to
make the live media useful in portable and rescue environments. Maybe
it would make sense to make the default boot option activate
persistence if it exists, but use a temporary overlay if it doesn't
(which is what we technically do today) and create menu options to
trigger overlay creation.

That said, SoaS would probably benefit from default persistence, since
I believe it's supposed to work from a USB stick.

> My impression is that currently persistence use is basically non-existent. 
> Our well-advertised tools like Fedora Media Writer don't support it. Even if 
> we flip this to make it easily available (which is probably a good thing), 
> how many users do you estimate would actually want to make use of it? Who 
> would want to work from a Live image regularly? I'm sure there are some use 
> cases, but they seem so niche to me, that making it a non-default boot option 
> wouldn't be a problem at all.
>
> I wonder if you've thought about this and why you decided to propose making 
> it enabled by default. Thanks.
>

I know that a big part of why persistence use is non-existent is that
support for integrating it into FMW has been deferred for years. Over
that time, the script has see-sawed from working to not working.
Having persistence means people can have Fedora environments they can
carry around, and if we advertised the capability, I think people
*would* use it.

Enabling persistence is pretty much a matter of adding a boot option
to the grub menu item. If we could modify the grub menu configuration
from FMW, then we could probably have a checkbox there to turn on/off
the capability.



-- 
真実はいつも一つ!/ Always, there's only one truth!
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Re: F38 proposal: Modernize Live Media (System-Wide Change proposal)

2022-10-19 Thread Kamil Paral
On Tue, Oct 18, 2022 at 10:43 PM Ben Cotton  wrote:

> There should be new options for resetting the persistent overlay and
> booting with no persistence. The default options should boot with
> persistence and setup of persistence should work.
>

Neal, Matt, what is the rationale for enabling persistence for the default
boot option? I have mixed opinions about this. One of the benefits of a
Live image, as we use it today, is that it's always the same/fresh. If I
use it and then hand it over to a friend/colleague, I don't need to worry
that some personal files (like a browser history) were left behind. I also
don't need to worry that I (or the previous user) made some changes which
would negatively impact the installation process or my user environment
(like configuring a different keymap, or installing some updates). It's
always as the creators intended. With the proposed Change, suddenly I need
to care and need to worry.

My impression is that currently persistence use is basically non-existent.
Our well-advertised tools like Fedora Media Writer don't support it. Even
if we flip this to make it easily available (which is probably a good
thing), how many users do you estimate would actually want to make use of
it? Who would want to work from a Live image regularly? I'm sure there are
some use cases, but they seem so niche to me, that making it a non-default
boot option wouldn't be a problem at all.

I wonder if you've thought about this and why you decided to propose making
it enabled by default. Thanks.
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