Fedora 37 Plans to Introduce New Anaconda Web UI Installer

The new Anaconda Web UI installer will be available as an option with Fedora 37 release.

Let’s face it. The default GTK-based Anaconda installer is old. Although it works fine, there are some debates about its user-friendliness. Moreover, the blivet-gui is not that expressive for an average user, especially the partitioning module. Not going to lie; I still get scared during partitioning while using this UI to this very day.

I agree that the Anaconda GTK installer is excellent concerning how fast it installs and requires much less information before installation. But a renovation was due.

The Anaconda Web UI installer has been under development for some time (perhaps a year or more). In a recent change proposal discussion, it’s approved to be part of the Fedora 37 release.

“The work on Web UI for the Anaconda installer has advanced enough so that it is possible to create and publish self-contained preview images.” as described in the proposal.

Why a Web UI Installer?

You might be wondering, why suddenly a need for web technologies to use in a Linux installer? There are many headless use cases where RHEL or Fedora installation happens. Those business scenarios only provide low-end hardware or a thin terminal – and those may not be capable of running the GTK toolkit with additional components.

Since the Anaconda Web UI uses Python, Cockpit and PatternFly (for wizard-based navigation) technologies, it will be easier to troubleshoot (via remote connection) or install faster.

On top of that, heavy graphics takes a toll on remote connectivity. We all know remote connectivity is much slower, even with high-speed internet connections, because the underlying protocols such as Remote Desktop (RDP) or VNC remained almost the same at its core.

The new Anaconda Web UI is trying to solve similar use cases. If all goes well in feedback and testing, this new installer may replace the Anaconda GTK installed on the Fedora desktop and spins.

Fedora 37 will not make it mandatory. Instead, it will be available as an option. Let’s wait until a test image for us to try and give you a sneak peek. You may want to compile and try from the source code if you have spare time.

Cheers.

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