Hi,
i've already been complaining about stupid GUI partitioner during the 
RHEL 7.0 setup, including Red Hat official forums.

For me it was easier to switch from gui installer to console 
(ctrl,alt,fx), create all needed partition with parted (or fdisk), then 
VG with vgcreate, LV with lvcreate etc etc

Then switch back to Gui installer and 'reread' disk layout.
Much faster, much easier, total control - at least for me.

cheers,


On 09/17/2014 03:50 PM, Vladimir Mosgalin wrote:
> Hello everybody.
>
> Just wanted to share some impressions from installing SL7. I know it's
> not in final release state, but then again, most of these issues are
> coming from upstream and likely not to be fixed in final release too;
> they aren't serious but something to keep in mind.
>
> The new installer looks beautiful, but frankly lacks some functionality
> from the old one :-/ Note that I used Russian language during installation
> so I'm providing my best guesses at how these options were named in
> english installer.
>
>
> One thing I couldn't find is ability to install "Minimal comfortable
> set of packages for small server". The previous installer offered
> flexibility where you could pick anything as a base ("server" or
> "desktop" etc) and then add a few groups. Also it offered excellent
> "Basic server" option, which made sure you will get at least some
> comfort by installing various useful utilities. I usually used that +
> some other groups to make sure you end up with at least basic hardware
> diagnostic and monitoring (lm_sensors, mcelog, etc).
>
> Now if you pick "minimal server" you can't add any more subgroups to it;
> not just individual packages, you can't even add groups. You have to
> choose "Infrastructure server" to be able to add at least something
> else. But what you can add are mostly server group packages. There is
> just no way to install e.g. "minimal server with typical hardware
> monitoring and diagnostics packages and vim-enhanced" from installer at
> all :(
>
>
> Timezone configuration lacks (typical for most linux & unix systems
> because it ensures that there is no way to get incorrect time during DST
> change) option "hardware clock is in GMT". I pick timezone and it
> assumes that bios stores local time. No way to change that from
> installer.
>
>
> The installer creates 200 Mb EFI System partition formatted in FAT16
> (for UEFI installation). UEFI Specification declares that only FAT32 is
> supported for EFI System partition located on hard drive - and the way
> it's written, relying on anything beyond minimal specification might
> work, but is wrong and will cause problems (good explanation here
> https://www.happyassassin.net/2014/01/25/uefi-boot-how-does-that-actually-work-then/)
>
> FAT16 partition is known to cause troubles at least with Windows 7
> bootloader
> (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/partman-efi/+bug/811485).
> I know that it's highly unlikely that someone will be installing any EL7
> distro on machine that dual boots into windows, but still, this is
> something to keep in mind.
>
> This bug happens because anaconda simply calls mkfs.vfat and by default
> it creates FAT32 only for partitions > 512 MB (or something). So the way
> to create correct EFI System partition is either do manual partitioning and
> create it with the size of 550 MB, or create and format it manually before
> installation - it can be 200 MB, but make sure to call mkfs.vfat -F 32
> then.
>
>
> Speaking of partitioning, new installer doesn't give an option "check &
> correct automatic partitions result". Well, the functionality is still
> there but you first have to go to manual partitioning for that.
>
> During manual partitioning, installer wants you to keep /boot as
> separate partition. It's beyond me why it can't be inside LVM with the
> rest of partitions. It's supported for many years in grub2 and works
> without issues - I'm pretty sure it'll work if done after installation,
> but you just can't do it from the installer.
>
> The automatic partitioning creates 200 MB EFI System partition, 500 MB
> boot and huge LVM encompassing the rest of space. And, once again,
> without asking user it allocates all the space to HUGE /home partition.
> Why would everyone need all the space allocated to /home right away is
> beyond me. This is LVM, one should be able to extend any partition which
> needs space - but no, the space is already allocated. This is something
> I really hope they'd have fixed in EL7 - while in fact they made matter
> even worse. Before you could reduce filesystem size and free space in
> LVM - now everything, including /boot and /home is formatted with xfs
> which can't be reduced.
>
> So when you find you need /var after installation you'll have to unmount
> - remove - recreate /home. Which might be easier than booting to single
> user mode and resizing /, but also more annoying if you already have
> some data on /home.
>
> Either way, be extra careful with automatic partitioning..
>
>
> Another trouble I experienced (but this is highly system-specific) was
> wrong video mode after installation. The system in question was
> Supermicro X9SCAA with Atom N2800 CPU. During installation, installer
> picked 1366x768 video mode despite connected monitor supporting up to
> 2560x1600 - this worked, however. But after installation during boot
> monitor simply turns off. Some kind of framebuffer is active right after
> grub starts booting the kernel as I could see pictures of penguin,
> kernel finishes first stages of initialization, but some point it tries
> to load gma500_gfx driver and output breaks.. X.org wasn't installed, it
> must've tried to replace framebuffer driver with device-specific or
> something.
>
> Blacklisting gma500_gfx solved it.
>