Fedora and Asahi Linux pals revamp installation process

2 weeks ago

The forthcoming Asahi/Fedora distro for Arm64 Macs will usage nan Calamares installer – but nan mainstream Fedora 39 mightiness get a new, simpler installation programme too.

According to a Mastodon post from 1 of nan task leads, Hector Martin, nan Asahi project's upcoming Fedora-based merchandise for Apple Silicon Macs will usage nan Calamares cross-platform installer.

Last month, nan Asahi task announced it was switching to Fedora for nan first autochthonal Arm64 distro for M1 and M2 Mac hardware. The flagship desktop is going to beryllium KDE Plasma, which is simply a departure from Fedora's default GNOME. Now it looks for illustration nan installer will beryllium different too. Quite a fewer distros usage Calamares – we person mentioned its usage successful nan Snap-free Xubuntu, Zinc, OpenMandriva Rome, and moreover the officially sanctioned Lubuntu flavor.

In nan meantime, though, if you effort nan existent Fedora Rawhide, nan rolling improvement testing merchandise of Fedora, it's trying a caller installer too. The Fedora Project's Adam Williamson told us: "It's a web UI: it uses nan aforesaid web toolkit (Patternfly) arsenic Cockpit and nan FreeIPA web UI. It runs successful Firefox successful a stalls mode. It's wizard-style, not hub-and-spoke."

We grabbed nan ISO and gave it a try. If you want to do nan same, don't effort it successful VirtualBox. For us, it collapsed truthful overmuch that it was unusable. In a KVM session, though, it ran fine.

Don't effort installing successful VirtualBox, aliases you will spot this sad look galore times. Including connected nan caller OS, which you can't yet log into

Whereas nan aged installer tries not to unit you into doing things successful immoderate peculiar order, nan caller 1 has a simpler, much linear process.

The installer takes you straight to a surface wherever you group up your disk partitions, pinch an optional GUI for manipulating them. Unlike astir distros, though, this is conscionable astir creating nan partitions you want – it's not astir utilizing them for anything, not yet. Setting up nan mountpoints, which is Linux-ese for "what goes where," is simply a abstracted shape that comes later. That successful itself isn't a problem; nan problem is that this measurement gives you nary denotation of what you will request later. A abstracted /boot filesystem is mandatory, truthful we had to spell back, region each our caller partitions, and effort again.

The caller installer is little intimidating, and originates easy enough

The installer is very minimal. For instance, isolated from a connection (with UK English buried acold down successful nan database of extras), it doesn't inquire immoderate questions astir localization. That intends that if you want it successful a different locale, you should prime "Try Fedora" and group your locale and surface solution successful nan unrecorded environment, then tally nan installer. It besides doesn't inquire immoderate questions astir personification accounts. That's postponed until nan recently installed OS boots up for nan first time.

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The caller process is astir arsenic streamlined arsenic a Linux installation tin get, which is impressive. The creation of nan existent Red Hat installer attempts to debar shoehorning you into a linear, step-by-step process, but nan problem pinch that is that installing an OS is a linear process, truthful you thin to find yourself blocked from continuing because you haven't performed immoderate basal action yet.

The Blivet partitioning instrumentality is elemental enough, but statement that it doesn't grip mountpoints. That comes later.

The Blivet partitioning instrumentality is elemental enough, but statement that it doesn't grip mountpoints. That comes later

The blivet-gui partitioning instrumentality remains a small inflexible, but successful nan past Red Hat folks person explained to america that this is because it needs to beryllium capable to create setups specified arsenic LVM and disk encryption, which nan GNU Parted/Gparted/Kparted family of devices don't presently handle. We'd person preferred to spot Red Hat heighten Parted, which, as we person documented before, still has superior limitations successful relationship pinch nan systemd_boot and mini FAT32 volumes.

Once you prime nan mountpoints, it's off. It doesn't inquire astir personification accounts until aft it reboots