For more than two years, Red Hat engineers working on the Anaconda installer have been developing a modern web-based installer user interface that integrates with Cockpit and is a modern alternative to the GTK-based installer interface that can be used to deploy Fedora Linux and eventually RHEL. We were expecting this web user interface installer option to be available in Fedora Workstation 40, but this has now been postponed to Fedora 41.
A proposed change was approved for Fedora 40 to provide the Anaconda web user interface for Fedora Workstation by default. The previously approved proposal reads as follows:
The new Patternfly-based user interface has been in development by the Anacon team for some time, and we want to make it available to Fedora users to enhance and modernize the installation experience. As the first step in the user adoption process, we are only targeting Fedora workstations.However, a big surprise issue arose that led to the feature now being moved to Fedora 41. This issue is caused by a significant difference in the behavior of the existing installer and the new web UI solution during the storage disk setup process.
In the existing behavior of Fedora 39 and earlier versions, users can queue up for stored changes during the installation process and then apply them in bulk once all changes are complete. However, on the cockpit-based user interface, the storage changes are applied as soon as they are selected. Because storage changes are applied immediately, rather than after all storage configuration changes have been made, it's reasonable to worry about accidental data loss from accidental clicks or other storage misconfiguration issues.
In order to avoid the risk of accidental data loss due to fundamentally different storage configuration changes, the Fedora Engineering and Steering Committee (FESCO) has decided to postpone changes to the web user interface installer until Fedora 41 cycle.
Fesco decided today.
*FESCO and QA will help schedule large-scale testing early in the F41 cycle, shortly after F40 GA. (+5, 0, 0)So there's a bit more to wait before the new Fedora Linux installer web UI is used by default on Fedora workstations, and if all goes well, Fedora Workstation 41 will be released this fall.