Hi, sorry for the inconvenience. We are planning to add the selection for the future version of Web UI but it wasn’t target for Workstation on purpose. As it was Workstation SIG wish to not show this complexity to users or make it low visible. The BTRFS should be the way of installation. For that reason we focused on another features instead.
However, we are planning partitioning type selection for Server edition for sure where during this we probably also enable as optional configuration also for Workstation but that is TBD.
I’ve tried the rawhide iso (20241129). It works. But I think there’s a serious issue of target. More on that later. First the bug:
Storage editor only really works properly if trying to edit an already partitioned disk. When trying to partition raw disks, it failed to properly configure root disk, only after trying to proceed and crashing the install then returning to disk config did it pick up the root partition. Doing this also skipped the encrypting option.
Now the feature requests:
- Storage configuration should be significantly more user friendly, not hidden away in deep layers.
- In addition to offering a default layout, a simple interface to allow putting home directories on a separate disk/network storage would be good. In my 2-disk setup, auto configuring immediately created an LVM with both disks
- Offer CIS security and partitioning options. Redhat/Alma/Rocky already does this. While most CIS requirements can be configured after installation, disk partitioning has to be done at install time, having the installer do it automatically based on CIS templates would be great.
- Option to use systemd-homed.
Question:
- How will kickstart work? The kickstart file generated after install is…“lacking” would be too generous.
My issue about target audience is that this installer seems made for people coming over from windows/macOSa where they just click 2 buttons and all is taken care of. Most Linux users however, have more demanding config requirements, a lot of which cannot be made after the installation. Hiding away the complexity is nice but as it stands, this is too much. We do need other install options available on hand, even if it’s one layer deep in the UI.
Hello, thank you for your feedback. I wrote a few notes below.
I guess you are talking about Cockpit Storage. We “hide” that after first feedback to avoid misunderstanding of recommended partitioning solution. Cockpit Storage is designed for advanced users only.
Do you mean LVM or BTRFS? It should create BTRFS.
We are already thinking about similar functionality but that is more for future improvements.
The security features were never supported on Fedora. The main reason AFAIK is that there is no team who would be supporting this on Fedora land. RHEL and other variants are too different from Fedora to be able to just enable it.
Thanks for your feedback. We will track this request.
Currently, I’m not aware that there would be a big requirement for systemd-homed, so I think this would be great as a community feature. I don’t think we will find time for these in the Anaconda team.
The kickstart file was never supported on Live ISO installations and we are not planning to enable it. For these cases you should use boot.iso (netinst) type of the installation media.
This is on purpose. The current goal is to enable web UI for Fedora Workstation only. This deliverable is focused on easy way of installation. We want to simplify things. More options will come when the target will be for example Server edition. In any case, we are not planning to implement our partitionner as we have with GTK UI. It’s hard to do this right and everyone prefers a different way of partitioning. Also you need years of experience to be able to do it correctly. Instead we decided to support externally done partitioning as first class citizen so anybody can use their preferred tool and we will provide you guidance.
I guess I put too many things into one post and got mixed up. Let me clarity.
The storage configuration for a fresh system is lacking. Advanced storage config doesn’t work (cannot assign root on a completely fresh install, while assigning partitions some partitions simply aren’t visible - strangely enough it all works if you try this on an already partitioned disk) and default configuration doesn’t have any options. This is not something that can be fixed post-install by a knowledgeable person. Even in the simplest presentation, there should be a better way to edit how we want to partition disks, which disks we want to use. It can be under a separate screen but we need the option at install time.
I suggest, under that partitioning submenu, some predefined configs. For example a default partitioning like andreamtp suggested in post 39.
For CIS I understand, but if the default partitioning suggestion above was implemented, maybe you could add CIS suggested partitioning options as well? The security features can be done post install but CIS suggestions have some pretty complex partitioning requirements. Having those as optional ready-made partitioning schemes would be great, if andreamtp’s above suggestion was considered.
I understand the concept you’re going for webUI. I just wanted to point out that in the process of simplification please don’t take away the ability to configure things that need to be done at install time.
Otherwise, thank you, we’re finally getting rid of that awful GTK installer