Feedback collection of Test Week for the Anaconda Web UI Installer for Fedora Workstation

Anaconda works well, but I would prefer the writings to be larger in size (perhaps adjustable) to read them better and if there was a graphic icon that further diversifies the usefulness of the writings next to the utilities it would be appreciated; when needed, like in Calamares, a bar for dual boot, to decide the space to allocate to Fedora if there is another operating system like Windows; also a bar graphic that shows and maybe edits the percentage of the partitions between them to have a graphical and not just numerical feedback when managing the partitions (like Gparted), in short a little more graphical and with large characters; also in the manual settings a drop-down menu with options like “/boot” “/” etc…

I tested the new installer in various scenarios:
(The test ISO is: Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-Rawhide-20241112.n.0.iso)

Automatic installation: It works well, is quick and simpler—this is a significant UI/UX improvement compared to the old installer. Well done!

Reinstallation while keeping the home: Tested multiple times, and it works as expected! As far as I know, in the Linux installer landscape, Anaconda Web UI is the only one with this feature. Again, kudos! Previously, I had to go through many steps to reinstall while keeping the home subvolume or others, using advanced partitioning in Blivet.

Advanced Custom Installation (clicking “Storage editor” in the top right): In this test, I tried deleting the proposed layout and creating a custom one: /boot/efi, btrfs partition + subvolumes. The issue I’m encountering upon reboot is that only the volume with the mount point “/” is mounted, while the other subvolumes are created but not listed in “fstab.” Maybe I’m missing a step?

In advanced installation, one improvement I could suggest is the ability to specify mount options.

Another issue I encountered is that the keyboard layout doesn’t switch to Italian, so the characters on the keyboard don’t match. However, this is a problem in the old installer as well, not a regression in the new one.

Thank you

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Does it mean that only an previous installations with BTRFS and standard volumes is supported? I.e. LVM or classic partitions (i.e. EXT4 root and home) are not supported. Is it?

Hi the boot of encrypted disk when decryption is stopped after two tries. This is expected behavior of LUKS in plymouth. Feel free to file it as RFE if you want on plymouth component. It is not related to Anaconda.

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Great to hear :+1:

It still have some rough edges we would like to improve but it is great to hear you like it!

Looks like a bug to me. Could you please file an issue on that?

Feel free to file this as RFE bug on the Cockpit project. We are using Cockpit Storage for this functionality.
However, it might be harder to do it correctly.

I’m not sure I heard about this one. Maybe it’s filed already and I missed that? Could you please file it in bugzilla we should probably move the discussion about this issue there.

No our thanks to you all. Our team thanks for a great feedback to everyone here!

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The layout should be changed in GNOME Setting, isn’t it?

Yes, exactly. To change the keyboard layout, I need to do it from the GNOME or KDE Plasma settings.

And then the selected layout works in the installer, is it?
After all it is a live session, the installer is a software as another. Maybe the issue is that a welcome screen should appear in order to select the layout and possibly the language.
But this is probably outside the installer’s purview (at least in a live session).

If we look at what other installers do, I’d say it’s the installer’s job to ensure the correct keyboard layout on the first boot. After all, it’s the first screen you see when you start the ISO. But a welcome screen would also be fine to avoid extra, unintuitive steps for new users, like changing the layout from the desktop settings.

Ubuntu:

Calamares (Kubuntu):


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If I understand correctly from the original post, the lack of keyboard and language support is a known issue and will be fixed before going live.

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As explained up-thread, that’s messy ATM because the intended flow on Workstation is for a special gnome-initial-setup mode to take care of it before anaconda runs, but that involves a large GNOME patchset which has not yet landed upstream. We were carrying it downstream for a while, so if you tried a webui image on F40 or earlier F41 you saw the intended flow, but for the last few months we are not carrying it downstream any more as nobody had time to do the work to rebase it on GNOME 47.

anaconda webui will have to implement it somehow anyway for non-GNOME cases, but it was not initially in scope for this webui+Workstation proof-of-concept.

the way it was supposed to work, the first thing you see on boot is a welcome screen provided by g-i-s that rotates between languages. that runs a short flow that lets you pick a language and input method, then you see the screen that lets you pick between running a live desktop or the installer. the language and input method you use is applied to that screen and then to the desktop or installer (whichever you pick). if you pick the installer, that language and input method are also passed through to the installed system.

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Done. I hope I did it correctly and that it will be helpful.

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Hi, this is not correct. Current limitations are:

  • Only Fedora system is supported.
  • Only one Fedora system on selected disks is available. Or in other words, you can’t have two systems installed beforehand on disks you want to use for installation and use this feature.

We should work fine with LVM, Ext4 etc…

I’d like to point out landing in a landing selection screen is perhaps as much of a big deal as the Web based Anaconda - at least for some users. This is because for years now people would be dumped to Live image running in English & while switching to different language was technically possible, it required you to click through various menus in GNOME control center, all in English.

Now once the GNOME Initial Setup patches are upstream users should be able to select their native language as the first thing once a Live image boots & then use it for everything - both the installation as well as when using the Live desktop environment. :slight_smile:

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Mh.
I don’t undestand.
With this previous partitioning


(sda3 is the old / and sda4 the old home)

The Installation method screen doesn’t show the Reinstall Fedora option.

Hard to say from the screenshots. We would probably have to see logs to say more.

Please feel free to file it in bugzilla ideally with the logs from /tmp/*log attached.

Done 2326476 – No Reinstall Fedora option if the system was manually partitioned

  1. No option to set a hostname. Bug or feature?
  2. Using live USB, clicked on ‘Install’ before the default pop-up appeared. Pop-up complaint about a file already existing in /var which I closed. Screen with initializing displayed with no progress in install. Killed initializing window from a terminal.
  3. Used Cockpit to set up btrfs partitions for test week. Clicking on ‘Return to Installer’ yielded “you have no defined a root partition (.)…” I believe an addendum to this message might be: Correct this by clicking on ‘Return to Installer’ and selecting ‘Mount point assignment’. Select a partition to be root partition (mount point ‘/’).
    Overall a very positive experience. Installing Fedora about eight times in 24 hours gave me a good look at the new installer. Congratulations on this project.
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Great point. We already have the the hostname configuration feature implemented, however, I guess it was not enabled on purpose. Not sure exactly why.

I’ve done a test on a VM using Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-Rawhide-20241120.n.0.iso and I’ve been unable to do my usual setup :frowning:

I’m used to manage my Fedora system like my servers, so I rely on XFS and LVM thin.
While I understand the choice to go with BTRFS for average Joe, I like fedora because it allows me to make the system the way I want it.

With previous installer, if you want to do manual things, without the blivet complexities, it was just a matter of selecting a partitioning type like “no LVM, regular LVM, and thin LVM” and I have a suggested partitioning with some blessed defaults (size of critical partitions like /boot and EFI).

Now with this new installer, if I want to diverge from the default, I have to do ALL by hand, and while I know how to do it, it’s time consuming.
Having a partitioning reference can be good if:

  • you want custom setup, but you’re learning
  • you are setting up a Fedora Server where most likely there’s no one size fit all

In addition to that, when I manually setup my root volume on a thin lvm and try to exit the partition editor, it fails to activate it, making impossible the installation of Fedora (BZ2328479).

I agree with those who mentioned that the spinning during installation is not that great, maybe better to have some pic or text cycling, and a global progess bar on top of the various specific points.

Thanks for this massive effort!

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