62 Replies
@bsherman @Noel @j0rge
So, to recap
We're tired of waiting for upstream, and even if upstream pulls through the install experience still isn't exactly great
Noel and I found this:
GitLab
Peter Eisenmann / OS-Installer · GitLab
A generic OS-Installer that can be customized by distributions
Which is beautiful, and extendable enough that we may be able to make this work for us
It runs on a live CD image, which Fedora doesn't really do anymore
but another OS is using it that's based on Arch (and another on Nix)
GitHub
GitHub - arkanelinux/arkaneiso: Configuration files for mkarchiso
Configuration files for mkarchiso. Contribute to arkanelinux/arkaneiso development by creating an account on GitHub.
That would be this one
Would mean we have a bootable microscopic arch image that then just launches GNOME OS installer, and let's us do what we need to install an OCI image (including locally)
Here's an arch mkiso github action as well
ready to go
Noel also did some work to get bootc to install an image and then immediately rebase to a remote URL
which I believe we can leverage through this installer
it also supports FDE and user account creation, both of which we need
GitHub
GitHub - arkanelinux/os-installer-config: Configuration files for o...
Configuration files for os-installer. Contribute to arkanelinux/os-installer-config development by creating an account on GitHub.
here are the configs for the installer arcanelinux ships
just to show how it works
wait, so we might actually make the meme installer?
I need to use ujust distrobox-arch and make a meme neofetch window after hearing this. 😉
I wonder what would new installer still lack?
It doesn't look bad based on screenshots I saw
but VanillaOS type of installer is definitely much better
More so a PoC at this point, but yeah. Arch is flexible enough to provide this kind of live environment to run the installer.
I've tried with the Fedora tooling and it will likely be tougher to use.
@Kyle Gospo when are you thinking you will have some time to work on it? I'm happy to help where I can, I'm just unavailable all day today.
i just love the offhand joke me and kyle did might actually be a possible solution, and there is also a small part of me that find it funny to leverage arch to install fedora
All roads lead back to Arch Linux.
in the end linux ends up just being linux, weird how that works out
i want to try help with this too if i can 👀
I still don't get why we need Arch ISO instead of normal one, besides the harder work comment from Noel
what are the issues with new Fedora installer?
The issue is creating an offline installer using the existing Fedora tooling.
All solutions I've seen have been net installs.
Or requiring a live rebase.
Ah, I forgot about offline installers when I started to use online ones.
It's just nice that you're always installing the latest image
Yeah. An offline installer will be more reliable for things like the steam deck.
Or users that have slower Internet.
We could still probably support an offline and an online installer with this solution.
Because the major difference would be if we do an OSTree deploy from an online registry vs one that is included in the ISO.
We also may be able to program some retry logic if the deploy fails which would be harder to do in anaconda.
Plot twist: Fedora sees our work, ditches their installer & switches to ours instead
I'll point you to the repo when I have it set up 😉
First step is just getting a live CD made
Then we get to figure out os-install
awesome, hopefully i will be able to understand it and help 😄
Occurred to me that because this is a live CD, it solves our lack of a virutal keyboard issue too
I really think this is the way @j0rge @Noel
One other thing that occured to me is that Fedora 39 Live CDs can also be used for this.
@Skynet and I have already been testing the possibilities with this
I got a functioning archiso build going as well
trying to get it to a place where we can play w/ the actual installer
yeah other than the meme thing why not use the existing fedora live CD?
how did the Fedora live CD thing go?
but whatever I have no strong opinions
100% based on ease-of-build
I'll go with whatever gets us across the finish line sooner
So the hiccup I was running into with the official live CD is that it's really big. (2GB) You can use a minimal kickstart file to create it, but it doesn't include the dependencies needed for running Anaconda.
w/ the minimal kickstart how big is it?
1GB
that's not bad, and that's a working/bootable copy of GNOME I assume?
minus everything
The minimal one does not include gnome.
oh lord that's a term?
Yeah, no DE
ow
the arkane linux installer, with a whole gnome DE and the install files on-disk, is 2.4GB
So it's pretty comparable. It really depends whether we want to use anaconda or retrofit the OS-Installer program.
oh so size is the reason. 😄
100% on the retrofit IMO
what's the build process like for the fedora liveCD? I can work on coprs for os-install
@Skynet created a workflow already for it: https://github.com/JasonN3/container-installer/pull/3
oh that's incredible
Right. Realistically the biggest hurdle is we just need anaconda to start and install podman and OSTree.
I think we skip anaconda, go for a GNOME live desktop with zero applications installed, and get os-installer working
I'm making changes to that right now actually. It looks like the official Fedora ISO is created using lorax, so I'm trying to figure out where the configs are for that so I can recreate that process in that repo
Then we have a virtual keyboard and a functioning installer UI
I can make a copr for os-installer today so we have RPMs to grab it w/
Live ISO would be ideal.
However anaconda does run in a window in the live installer.
That would be old anaconda though, no?
WIth the confusing user entry screen we have to guide people through
Rawhide has the new version.
hmmm
Guess I need to see it
Realistically, it doesn't matter if you use normal Fedora workstation, because all they are doing in the Silverblue installer is running a kickstart command to use
ostree deploy
Only reason I get a bit nervous using the OS-Installer is there seems to be confusion on what it's used for. It's apparently not used for gnome-os. Anaconda is a known quantity
I'm open to Lorax as well, I just don't have expertise on how to use it.
I can get some screenshots in a bit.
It looks pretty slick.
weird.
I thought I saw new anaconda installer, but it did not appear in the most recent attempt to build.
maybe I'm just seeing things.well, I like this better than doing arch anyway
so all the more reason for me to make that os-install copr
Oh ok, so you'd rather do Fedora, just have an OS-install copr?
yeah, if it's not too complicated that keeps us closer to home
Ok sure.
We can probably skip worrying about anaconda then.
We can pick a lighter weight image to use too.
yep, my vote is still gnome w/ no applications
maybe toss a couple things on there for recovery purposes
like prompt & gnome disks
sure. that's pretty easy.
if you're able to get it into a copr, we can use the livecd-creator to add it as a package.
I think kickstart allows you to add additional repos.
oh, it's pretty easy.
repo --name=<repo-name> --mirrorlist=<mirror-url>so this is what Silverblue uses to deploy using anaconda:
@Kyle Gospo we may have an issue with this method because our images are already OCI and are not in an OStree repo format.
we may need to do some nasty stuff to get this working: https://www.aleskandro.com/posts/rpm-ostree-container-native-fedora-silverblue-kinoite-dual-boot/
this is an example of someone deploying using OStree from an OCI container.
OK, I may have found the missing piece: https://pykickstart.readthedocs.io/en/latest/kickstart-docs.html#ostreecontainer
this exists in kickstart.
and has since fedora 38
gonna give it a try.
OK.
theory may be sound here.
this is still pulling the image down from the internet.
BUT.
if I make it available on disk itself and we point to it, it could work.
I probably should've picked one of our smaller images XD