Serious disappointment in the installation of CentOS7

[eddiener]

I hope I am wrong but can it really be that the installation of CentOS7 can only be done overwriting the MBR of my bootup disk with boot loader code for grub2 ?

For years Microsoft has been criticized for taking over one's hard disk when some version of Microsoft Windows is installed. There has been some validity in this criticism as some version of Windows have been known to wipe out the ability to run other OSs on a particular computer. Now I go to install a Linux distribution, CentOS7, only to see it wanting to take over the MBR of my hard disk in order to install itself. This is horrible and just as bad, finally, as some of the past actions of Windows when installed on a hard drive.

I have been able to install the CentOS5 boot loader to a /boot partition when installing CentOS5. I have been able to install the CentOS6 boot loader to a /boot partition when installing CentOS6. I have been able to the install Fedora boot loader to a /boot partition when installing Fedora, and that also uses grub2. I have been able to install numerous other Linux distro boot loaders using grub2 to a /boot partition when installing the particular distro.

What is wrong with CentOS7 ?

I hope I am wrong and that I have missed something in the installation. But having an OS taking over my hard drive by installing itself to my MBR is not what I expect from any modern OS, much less a friendly, first-rate, solid OS like CentOS.

Say it ain't so, CentOS !

Or if it is so please modify the installation program to correct this huge flaw and issue an updated .iso so that people like me, who don't want their machines taken over by any particular OS, can boot into CentOS7 from their own multi-boot manager.

[easycity]

In the past, Red Hat/Centos had been really good in installation, equal to Windows.
But for 7, I cannot even select a hard drive and start the installation process.

I will read the manual if I can find one, and kept trying. But that is a big "downgrade" from older versions.

[barry905]

I have just installed Centos 7 and had no problem selecting the dive I wanted to use. Just prior to the installation there is an "INSTALLATION SUMMARY" screen which tell you what options will be used. If you click on the "INSTALLATION DESTINATION" section it will allow you to pick the drive you want to use.

Good luck.

[centguy]

This problem is considered solved according to

viewtopic.php?f=47&t=47241

The RHEL/Fedora have the rights to decide which way to go, but I think this is a bit unnecessary. Even
the supercautious (a bit nanny) distros such as ubuntu does not force users to stick to this. The last
time I checked, Linux Mint 14 (or may be 15) allows users to install bootloader to the partition. I quit installing
CentOS 7 yesterday partly because of this issue.

[eddiener]

This problem is considered solved according to

viewtopic.php?f=47&t=47241

The RHEL/Fedora have the rights to decide which way to go, but I think this is a bit unnecessary. Even
the supercautious (a bit nanny) distros such as ubuntu does not force users to stick to this. The last
time I checked, Linux Mint 14 (or may be 15) allows users to install bootloader to the partition. I quit installing
CentOS 7 yesterday partly because of this issue.

Suse, Mageia, Ubuntu, and Mint all have options in their installer to install the grub2 bootloader to a partition and a previous version of Fedora allowed it also. In fact I doubt if any serious Linux distro other than the latest Fedora and now CentOS7 has disabled such an option. Oh well, the manual way of doing it is still available and I was successful doing it that way.