Ansible to ansible-core transition from a user's perspective

What’s the expected or intended path for a user to navigate the transition from using ansible to ansible-core?

As ansible approaches end-of-life, will the ansible-core package obsolete ansible?

If Jane User has ansible installed and she performs regular updates and Fedora system version upgrades, will the Right Thing happen, or are there additional steps a user must take to get on a supported path wrt ansible?

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With Fedora 36, when users upgrade they will get ‘ansible’ (which is a collection of more than 300 ansible-collections) and ‘ansible-core’ which is the engine. So, largely things will just keep working along. The ansible-core package has ‘ansible-playbook’ and ‘ansible’ and ‘ansible-galaxy’ commands in it, the ansible collections package has a bunch MORE collections than old ansible 2.9.x did. Users that don’t want all the collections can remove the ‘ansible’ package (keeping ansible-core) and just install particular collections they need (some are seperately packaged in Fedora, or you can use ansible-galaxy to install them).

Hope that clarifies things… but happy to answer any other questions I can or clarify.

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Thanks, @kevin.
Check my paraphrase: So on current Fedora 35, ansible-2.9.27-1.fc35.noarch conflicts with ansible-core-2.11.5-1.fc35.noarch because the former contains the older version of the engine that’s also in the ansible-core rpm plus the old kitchen sink full of legacy modules. But with F36, ansible will just be those modules (more or less) repackaged as collections, while going forward from there the engine is only in ansible-core.

Assuming I’m only using the built-in modules, if I want to get off the 2.9.x engine before Fedora 36 lands, could I uninstall the ansible rpm, install ansible-core and get on with things? Or the flip side of that same coin: Is there any compelling reason to stick with the F35 ansible rpm through the F36 upgrade?

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Yes, you could switch to using just ansible-core now if you like with just a ‘dnf swap ansible ansible-core’. However it has quite a few less things built into it than old ‘ansible 2.9.x’ so you may find modules or connection plugins or things you use missing. Of course at that point you could go see where they are and install them via ansible-galaxy or dnf (if they are packaged seperately in Fedora). There’s about 12 of the most popular collections packaged up now.

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