Fedora 38 Everything Installer
I've explored Fedora 38 Plasma when it was quite new, but what caught my attention this time was its "Everything" network installer. I assume it's similar to the Calimares installer used by other distros, but I'm curious. Let's take a look at it. This time I'll document this as I go, so you'll see stuff as I see it.
It starts out looking like any other .ISO installer, asking the usual questions. The first question all installers need to ask is what language do you need?
The second page looks very much like every other Fedora installer. Before I move on, I'm going to select Installation Destination, and prepare my virtual disk drive with an EFI boot partition and a swap partition.
I click twice to select the disk I want to use, as usual, but this time I also click on the Custom option at the bottom of the page. Always before, I've just used the Automatic option, and it's done a good job.
Now I'm seeing a page I've never seen before. I haven't partitioned my disk before starting this installer, expecting to do that here. The Calamares installer, for example, provides GParted to do that. If I select the option to manually create mount points, will that also allow me to create the partitions and configure them?
Nope. Apparently not. Before I bail out and partition the disk elsewhere, I'll go back and select the Automatic option, to see how close it comes to what I would have created.
Here's the answer. I also had the option to contiue without changing anything, by clicking [Done] twice, but I didn't think that would accomplish anything. In fact, selecting mount points apparently does create the partitions as shown, but although I might be able to edit the values here, I don't see any way to create a swap partition. It's looking more and more like I need to partition the disk elsewhere, but first I want to try one more thing. If I selected the option for it to automatically partition the disk, it might offer the option to include a swap partition, and enable hibernating. Many installers work that way. I'll try that before I give up on this altogether.
Choosing to discard the current changes and re-read the existing disk takes me back to here, but sadly, the Custom option is still checked, and I can't uncheck it in order to change to the Automatic option. I may be missing something, but it's beging to look like I need to figure out a way to get this disk formatted before I start using the Everything installer. Maybe there's an option at the beginnig to launch a partition manager? I need to start over again, and this time look very carefully for a way to prepare the disk before I go any farther.
Nope. No option here to launch a partition manager. Not like Calamares at all. I'll just continue as before, and see if there's anything on the next page.
This time I chose the same disk, of course, but now I've left the Automatic partitioning option selected. I'm going to take a look at Software Selection next, to see if that's where I can choose a DE.
Wow! Now I can see why they call this their Everything installer .ISO. I'm going to see what I get if I select the KDE Plasma Workspaces option. It surprises me that it lists the other DE options as desktops, but not KDE Plasma--that's just listed as workspaces. I wonder what it's gonna look like? (The reason I wanted to install the Plasma DE was to compare Fedora's implementation to others, but this may not allow me to do that.)
This screen is where I can also set the network and host name options. The network connection comes from VirtualBox, of course. The network name that I'll use for the VM starts with "vm." followed by "malachite," the name of its host machine, and finally "fedora38."
The last change I always make is to set Los Angeles in the time zone map. It always amuses me that the map allows me to select Los Angeles, but puts the city about where Seattle is. That's closer to Canada than it is to Mexico. 🙂 No worries, though. I just need the Pacific time zone, and obviously choosing Los Angeles does that for me, regardless of where the map puts Los Angeles. Finally, it's time to move on from this page.
Aw, fsck! I hadn't selected an installation source, because I though Closest Mirror would do that for me, but no. I can't find anything on this page that will assign the closest mirror for me, or allow me to select the mirror from a list, the way other distros do.
I'm going to take a break now, as this is Sunday, and MotoGP is at LeMans for the French Grand Prix. World Superbikes is in Misano for one of the Italian rounds. And we somehow missed watching the Formula 1 race in Monaco last weekend.
All together, that means about 9 motorcycle races plus the Formula 1 race to watch, if we ignore all the qualifications and support races. I'll take another shot at making sense of this Fedora installer after things settle down here.