Release notes

This document describes major installer-related changes in Fedora releases.

A guide on adding new entries is in the release documentation.

Fedora 39

Changes in the graphical interface

Use keyboard layout configuration from the Live system

Until now, users had to specify keyboard layout for the Live environment manually in Anaconda. With this change, live system itself is responsible for the keyboard configuration and Anaconda just reads the configuration from the live system for the installed system.

The live keyboard layout is used automatically only if the user does not specify it manually. At this moment, only Gnome Shell environment is supported.

This is proper fix for https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2016613 which was resolved by a workaround in the past. It is also a step forward to resolve https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1955025.

See also:

Changes in kickstart support

New kickstart options to control DNS handling

There are several new options for the network kickstart command to control handling of DNS:

  • The --ipv4-dns-search and --ipv6-dns-search allow manual setting of DNS search domains. These options mirror their respective NetworkManager properties, for example:

    network --device ens3 --ipv4-dns-search example.com,custom-intranet-domain.biz (...)

  • --ipv4-ignore-auto-dns and --ipv6-ignore-auto-dns allow ignoring DNS settings from DHCP. These options do not take any arguments.

All of these network command options must be used together with the --device option.

See also:

Changes in Anaconda configuration files

Deprecated configuration options are now removed

The following deprecated configuration file options are now removed:

  • kickstart_modules

  • addons_enabled

See also:

Allow to turn off geolocation for language selection

New Localization section with use_geolocation option is added to Anaconda configuration. The option allows to turn off geolocation for language selection.

See also:

Architecture and hardware support changes

Add support for compressed kernel modules

Support for Driver Discs containing compressed kernel modules has been added. Support for compressed kernel modules is limited to file extensions .ko.bz2, .ko.gz, .ko.xz and .ko.zst.

See also:

Wait 5 secs during boot for OEMDRV devices (#2171811)

Because disks can take some time to appear, an additional delay of 5 seconds has been added. This can be overridden by boot argument inst.wait_for_disks=<value> to let dracut wait up to <value> additional seconds (0 turns the feature off, causing dracut to only wait up to 500ms). Alternatively, if the OEMDRV device is known to be present but too slow to be autodetected, the user can boot with an argument like inst.dd=hd:LABEL=OEMDRV to indicate that dracut should expect an OEMDRV device and not start the installer until it appears.

See also:

General changes

New Runtime module

Anaconda now has a new D-Bus module called Runtime. This module stores run-time configuration of the installer and provides methods for the overall installer flow control.

Warning: This module must always run, or anaconda crashes. Users of the following configuration file entries must adapt to this change:

  • kickstart_modules

  • activatable_modules

  • forbidden_modules

  • optional_modules

See also:

Make the EFI System Partition at least 500MiB in size

The minimum size of the EFI System Partition (ESP) created by Anaconda has changed from 200 MiB to 500 MiB. The maximum size, which is used in most cases, remains at 600 MiB.

The reasons for this change include:

  • This partition is used to deploy firmware updates. These updates need free space of twice the SPI flash size, which will grow from 64 to 128 MiB in near future and make the current partition size too small.

  • The new minimum is identical with what Microsoft mandates OEMs allocate for the partition.

See also:

Respect preferred disk label type provided by blivet (#2092091, #2209760)

In Fedora 37, anaconda was changed to always format disks with GPT disk labels, so long as blivet reported that the platform supports them at all (even if blivet indicated that MBR labels should be preferred). This was intended to implement a plan to prefer GPT disk labels on x86_64 BIOS installs, but in fact resulted in GPT disk labels also being used in other cases. Now, we go back to respecting the preferred disk label type indicated by blivet, by default (a corresponding change has been made to blivet to make it prefer GPT labels on x86_64 BIOS systems). The inst.disklabel option can still be used to force a preference for gpt or mbr if desired.

See also:

Install an image using systemd-boot rather than grub (#2135531)

With this release, systemd-boot can be selected as an alternative boot loader for testing and development purposes.

This can be done with inst.sdboot from the grub/kernel command line or with --sdboot in a kickstart file as part of the bootloader command. The resulting machine should be free of grub, shim, and grubby packages, with all the boot files on the EFI System Partition (ESP). This may mean that it is wise to dedicate the space previously allocated for /boot to the ESP in order to assure that future kernel upgrades will have sufficient space.

For more information, refer to the anaconda and systemd-boot documentation.

See also:

Fedora 38

Changes in the graphical interface

Modernized welcome screen on Live CD

The welcome screen on Live CD has been changed to follow the current design patterns, as well as fit better into the surrounding GTK4-based interface. See the pull request #4616 for more information.

Improved configuration of additional repositories in GUI

Configuration of additional repositories in the graphical user interface has been improved. The protocol selection is now replaced with a drop-down menu of source actions. The screen also shows only configuration options relevant to the selected source action. See the pull request #4498 for more details.

Installation source errors are visible again

Previously, errors related to contents of the Installation Source screen did not cause the error message bar to appear at the bottom of the screen. As a consequence, users could not review the error messages and immediately correct the errors on the screen. The error message bar now appears correctly when errors occur. As a result, users can immediately notice errors in the Installation Source screen and correct them. See the pull request #4501.

Japanese translation fits the whole screen

Previously, using Anaconda in Japanese caused the main screen elements to use larger font than in other languages. As a consequence, the user settings were hidden outside the visible screen area and required scrolling. The sizing has been corrected, and Japanese users can now see the user settings icon and description even on the smallest supported screen sizes again. See the pull request #4325.

Architecture and hardware support changes

Do not pass the rd.znet boot argument on to the installed system unconditionally

With this change, the rd.znet boot argument is no longer passed on to the installed system unconditionally on IBM Z systems and the network device is configured and activated after switchroot by udev/NetworkManager. When networking is needed early in initramfs (like in a case of the root file system on iSCSI), rd.znet is automatically added to the kernel command line of the installed via a different mechanism. See the pull request #4303.

The dmraid and nodmraid boot options are removed

The inst.dmraid and inst.nodmraid boot options have been removed. These options no longer controlled any functionality, after Anaconda started using mdadm instead of dmraid. See the pull request #4517 and the related Fedora Change.

Biosboot partition verification

The biosboot partition is now verified on all installation target disks. This improves support for booting from an array. See the pull request #4277.

Multiple bootloader devices on the Manual Partitioning screen

With this change, the graphical interface displays correctly all bootloader devices on the Manual Partitioning screen. See the pull request #4271.

Payload changes

Add support for OSTree native containers

Fedora is adding a new enhanced container support for the (rpm-)ostree stack to natively support OCI/Docker containers as a transport and delivery mechanism for operating system content. Anaconda now supports these containers by a new kickstart command ostreecontainer. See the pull request #4617, Fedora Change and Pykickstart.

rpm-ostree now validates checksums for local repositories

Previously, rpm-ostree installations verified checksums only for installations from a remote repository, while installations from local repositories did not verify the checksums. As a consequence, rpm-ostree installations from local repositories could install corrupted data without any indication. This behavior is now unified, and Anaconda verifies checksums for all rpm-ostree repositories. As a result, all rpm-ostree installations are now protected against installing corrupted data. See the pull request #4357 for more information.

Kickstart support

Creating hibernation swap from kickstart

The new autopart (...) --hibernation kickstart option creates a swap partition with an automatically determined size that is big enough for hibernation. See the pull request #4275.

General changes

Faster core dumps

Previously, Anaconda used a custom setup for handling tracebacks and saving core dumps. This is now realized by using the faulthandler Python module and the systemd-coredump service. As a result, the same debugging data is still available, while the installation environment becomes responsive significantly sooner after tracebacks. As a side effect, the logs from Anaconda and the installation environment now contain different error messages. See the pull request #4350 for more information.

The Web UI of Anaconda is now packaged in Fedora

Anaconda team is working for some time on the new Web UI frontend for the installer and to make this in development Web UI more accessible to people we decided to add this as a new package to Fedora repositories. To be able to consume this Web UI, you need to build ISO with the Web UI package and add kernel boot arguments inst.webui. This package is not included in the existing Fedora images by default. See the pull request #4269.

Fedora 37

General changes

GPT is the default disk label type

Fedora Linux systems installed on legacy x86 BIOS systems will get GPT partitioning by default instead of legacy MBR partitioning. This should be a new default for all products. See the Fedora Change for more info.

Read-only /sysroot on RPM OSTree systems

The RPM OSTree installations set the /sysroot mount point as read-only instead of read-write to make the newly installed systems more robust. Users and administrators are not expected to directly interact with the content available there and should use the available interfaces to manage their system. See the pull request and the Fedora Change.

Anaconda doesn’t copy /etc/resolv.conf to systems

Anaconda does not copy the /etc/resolv.conf file from the installation environment to the installed system anymore. Creating the file is a business of systemd-resolved or the Network Manager. Anaconda is not going to interfere into this process anymore. Currently the file is created by systemd-resolved package during the installation. See the pull requests #3814 and #3818.

Correct SELinux contexts on existing home directories

Previously, the installer set incorrect SELinux contexts on home directory contents when reusing home directory from previous installation. The contexts are now set correctly. See the pull request.

Enabled hibernation on arm64 with swap

Previously, the installer enabled resume from hibernation by adding kernel command line option resume=swap_device only on the x86 architecture family. With this change, the same is done also for the arm64 architecture. As a result, devices of the arm64 architecture are now able to correctly resume from hibernation. See the pull request.

Changed default swap size for large-memory systems

The default swap size on systems with 64 GiB or more RAM is 32 GiB now. Previously, it was 4 GiB. See the pull request.

Removed some scripts provided by Anaconda

The following undocumented installed scripts were removed from anaconda packages:

  • /usr/bin/analog

  • /usr/bin/restart-anaconda

The following unused development scripts were removed from the Anaconda repository:

  • run_boss_locally.py

  • anaconda-read-journal

  • list-screens

  • make-sphinx-docs

See the pull requests #3839 and #3838.

Changes in the graphical interface

The media verification dialog is improved

Previously, the media verification dialog indicated a good or bad media check result using the same sentence, differing only in presence of a single “not”. Additionally, the dialog did not visually change much upon completion of the check. Consequently, it was not easy to interpret the result of the media check, or even see if it was finished.

The dialog now uses a large icon to signal whether the media is good or not, and while the check is running, this icon is absent. As a result, it is now possible to easily tell the state of the media check. See the pull request and the screenshot.

Improved calculation of the space estimation

During automatic partitioning the disk spoke estimates the space required for the installation and if there isn’t enough free space it display a warning dialog suggesting more space should be reclaimed. This estimate included the recommended swap size even when swap wasn’t configured to be created. See the bug 2068290.

The zFCP dialog supports NPIV-enabled devices

The “Add zFCP” dialog supports NPIV-enabled zFCP devices. NPIV-enabled devices are activated just by using the device ID. The kernel module will detect the WWPNs and LUNs and bring all the devices up automatically. This means the user doesn’t have to provide the WWPN and LUN IDs. See the pull request.

The timezone map doesn’t show borders

Anaconda is not showing timezone borders in the Time & Date spoke. The map is white now. See the bug 2103657

Changes in the kickstart support

Prompt for a missing passphrase in GUI

If the kickstart file defines a partitioning that requires a passphrase, the graphical user interface shows a dialog that allows users to provide the missing passphrase. The installation automatically continues after the passphrase is provided. It works the same way in the text user interface. See the pull request.

rootpw --allow-ssh is supported

Use the --allow-ssh option of rootpw kickstart command to allow remote logins of the root user via SSH using only the password. This is disabled by default for the security reasons, so be aware of risks. See the pull request and the Fedora Change for the default behaviour.

zfcp --devnum= is supported

The zfcp kickstart command supports NPIV-enabled zFCP devices. NPIV-enabled devices are activated just by using the device ID. The kernel module will detect the WWPNs and LUNs and bring all the devices up automatically. This means the user doesn’t have to provide the WWPN and LUN IDs:

zfcp --devnum=<device_number>

See the pull request for more info.

Changes in Anaconda options

inst.gpt is deprecated

Use the inst.disklabel boot option to specify a preferred disk label type. Specify gpt to prefer creation of GPT disk labels. Specify mbr to prefer creation of MBR disk labels if supported. The inst.gpt boot option is deprecated and will be removed in future releases. See the pull request.

Changes in Anaconda configuration files

The gpt option is replaced

The default value of the preferred disk label type is specified by the disk_label_type option in the Anaconda configuration files. The gpt configuration option is no longer supported. See the pull request.

The decorated_window option is removed

The decorated_windows option is removed from Anaconda’s configuration files. It was never requested and we have no evidence that it was used. See the pull request.

The enable_ignore_broken_packages option is removed

The enable_ignore_broken_packages option in Anaconda’s configuration files is removed. The pykickstart decides whether the %packages --ignorebroken feature is supported or not. See the pull request.

The blivet_gui_supported option is removed

The support for Blivet-GUI will be disabled automatically if it is not installed. Use the hidden_spokes option of the User Interface section to disable it explicitly. See the pull request.

The can_detect_unsupported_hardware and can_detect_support_removed options were removed

The support for detection of unsupported hardware is no longer available. See the pull request for more info.

Fedora 36

General changes

The help support is unified

The help support on RHEL and Fedora uses new mapping files with a unified format. The mappings files are located in the root of the help directory. For example for RHEL, they are expected to be at:

/usr/share/anaconda/help/rhel/anaconda-gui.json
/usr/share/anaconda/help/rhel/anaconda-tui.json

The mapping files contain data about the available help content. The UI screens are identified by a unique screen id returned by the get_screen_id method, for example installation-summary. The help content is defined by a relative path to a help file and (optionally) a name of an anchor in the help file.

For example:

{
  "_comment_": [
    "This is a comment",
    "with multiple lines."
  ],
  "_default_": {
    "file": "default-help.xml",
    "anchor": "",
  },
  "installation-summary": {
    "file": "anaconda-help.xml",
    "anchor": "",
  },
  "user-configuration": {
    "file": "anaconda-help.xml",
    "anchor": "creating-a-user-account"
  }
}

The default_help_pages configuration option is removed. The helpFile attribute is removed from the UI classes. See the pull request for more info.

Changes in the graphical interface

Users are administrators by default

In the User spoke, the “Make this user administrator” checkbox is now checked by default. This improves installation experience for users who do not know and need to rely on the default values to guide them. See the Users are admins by default change.

Keyboard configuration is disabled on Live media with Wayland

The keyboard switching in the Anaconda installer on the Live media did not behave as expected on Wayland based environments (#2016613). When users changed the keyboard layout configuration that configuration was reflected in the Live environment. However, if users pressed modifier keys (CTRL or SHIFT) the keyboard specified by the Anaconda installer was changed back for the Live environment. That is the result of how the Wayland protocol handles keyboard layout.

To avoid this unexpected behavior Anaconda will no longer control keyboard layout configuration of the Live systems on Wayland Live environment. The keyboard configuration set by Anaconda on the Live environment will be reflected only to the installed system. This means that users have to pay attention that their passwords are written by the correct layout in the installer running inside the Live environment to be able to use the password in the system after installation.

Changes in the kickstart support

The %anaconda section is removed

The support for the deprecated %anaconda section is removed. Use Anaconda configuration files instead.

ANA_INSTALL_PATH is deprecated

The ANA_INSTALL_PATH environment variable is deprecated. The support for this variable will be removed in future releases. Use the /mnt/sysroot path in your kickstart scripts instead. See the Installation mount points documentation.

Changes in Anaconda options

inst.nompath is deprecated

The inst.nompath boot option is deprecated. It has not been doing anything useful for some time already.

Changes in Anaconda configuration files

Saving Anaconda’s data to target system

Anaconda configuration file format now includes additional options to control what is saved to the target system.

The options are:

# Should we copy input kickstart to target system?
can_copy_input_kickstart = True

# Should we save kickstart equivalent to installation settings to the new system?
can_save_output_kickstart = True

# Should we save logs from the installation to the new system?
can_save_installation_logs = True

The default values above cause no change in behavior, the new options are only another way to configure the behavior.

Fedora 35

General changes

Limited support for braille devices

The Server image (boot.iso) now contains the brltty accessibility software. This means that some braille output devices can be automatically detected and used. This feature works only in text mode, started with the inst.text boot option. See the bug.

Visible warnings in initrd

Installation shows critical warnings raised in Dracut/initrd again when Anaconda is starting or when Dracut starts to timeout. This should help users to resolve installation issues by avoiding that the important message was scrolled out too fast. See the bug.

Changes in the graphical interface

New look of the NTP server dialog

The NTP server dialog has been redesigned. The new look uses more traditional approach to management of lists (such as in hexchat). See the pull request.

  • The set of controls to add a new server is no longer present. Instead, a “blank” new server is added by clicking an “add” button. The details can be filled in by editing the server in the list, as was already possible.

  • The method to remove a server is now more intuitive. Users can simply click the “remove” button and the server is instantly removed from the list. Previously, users had to uncheck the “Use” checkbox for the server in the list and confirm the dialog.

New look of the root configuration screen

The root configuration screen has been redesigned and is no longer ambiguous. All root account options are visible only if root account is enabled. The new layout also contains text to let users understand their choices. See the pull request.

Changes in the text interface

The packaging log in tmux tabs

Add a new tab to the tmux session starting the Anaconda installer. This new tab will follows the /tmp/packaging.log log file. This change should make it easier for users to spot software installation errors. See the pull request.

Changes in Anaconda configuration files

Replacement of product configuration files

The support for the product configuration files was removed and replaced with profiles. See the Fedora change and the documentation.

Each profile can be identified by a unique id and it can define additional options for the automated profile detection. The profile will be chosen based on the inst.profile boot option, or based on the ID and VARIANT_ID options of the os-release files. The profile configuration files are located in the /etc/anaconda/profile.d/ directory.

The inst.product and inst.variant boot options are deprecated.

Options for Anaconda DBus module activation

We have introduced new configuration options that affect the detection and activation of the Anaconda DBus modules. Use the activatable_modules option to specify Anaconda DBus modules that can be activated. Use the forbidden_modules option to specify modules that are not allowed to run. Use the optional_modules to specify modules that can fail to run without aborting the installation.

The DBus modules can be specified by a DBus name or by a prefix of the name that ends with an asterisk. For example:

org.fedoraproject.Anaconda.Modules.Timezone
org.fedoraproject.Anaconda.Addons.*

The addons_enabled and kickstart_modules options are deprecated and will be removed in the future.

See the pull request.