Hi folks, bug #372011 [https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=372011] is hosting a heated debate about anaconda & F8, how this dreadful bug has been hurting F8 reputation and so on (I'm one of the poor souls that have been affected by it -- and have been saved by patched .img provided by Jeremy Katz [http://katzj.fedorapeople.org/updates-f8-yumloop.img]). One thing that's clear is that anaconda QA missed some key spots, and also that we (users) didn't help much on the process, allowing the bugs to remain hidden until the version was officially released, which led to a lot of stress among users and developers. I would really like to participate more during the beta stage of new Fedora versions. However, as I stated on Comment #97 [https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=372011#c97] I can't really install beta versions on my system at home, I use it daily, including for work. But, AFAICS the other aspects of the installation process are pretty much stable and independent from the current installation (language selection, keyboard selection etc.), and the critical step for an upgrade is dependency solving / package selection. So, what if the developers provided early access to this particular part of anaconda only? I mean, in read-only mode, it would just gather information about the packages currently installed and confirm if it would be able to handle an upgrade on a "real" installation scenario? It could for instance stop right after depsolve and show some statistics. Believe me, if I was sure that I could test anaconda in read-only mode I would gladly do it, at any step before the official release. Chances are that test coverage would improve considerably, and no installation would be touched during this process. Does this make any sense to anyone? Would this help? Is it already possible somehow? Regards, Andre
