The installer for Fedora Linux isn’t perfect. Now, the Fedora team is working on a replacement that aims to be less confusing and more useful.
The developers behind Fedora Linux are working on a new interface for the operating system’s ‘Anaconda’ installer, replacing the current design that has stuck around for 25 years. A blog post explains, “We wanted to rethink the installation process, to create a more streamlined experience where people are guided through the installation process step-by-step in a linear manner, so they don’t have to hunt for the right things to configure amid all the possible settings.”
The new installer is designed around four common tasks: using the entire drive for a fresh installation, sharing the drive with another operating system, reinstalling Fedora, or setting up a custom partition scheme. The simplified dual-boot and reinstallation options are new.
The Fedora team also decided to use web technologies for the new installer, instead of porting it to GTK 4, which would have required “a massive effort to rewrite much of the frontend, especially as Anaconda has many custom GTK widgets.” That’s a bit like the new installer that Canonical created for Ubuntu, which is written in Google’s cross-platform Flutter framework. Fedora’s installer is based on work from Cockpit, and the interface is rendered with Firefox, not Chromium or Electron.
The developers hope the new installer will make it easier for people to try Fedora Linux, and the updated technical foundation will make updates simpler and encourage more community contributions. There are several more improvements in the works, including better mobile screen support, a log viewer, and improved light and dark mode switching.
The new installer will roll out in phases, starting with the Fedora Workstation live image, and coming later to other desktop installations. It’s still limited to testers for now, though—once the bugs are worked out, it will show up in the Fedora Linux 42 live images.
Source: Fedora Magazine
