Anaconda is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

system installer Installation (or setup) of a computer program (including device drivers and plugins), is the act of making the program ready for execution. Installation refers to the particular configuration of a software or hardware with a view to making it ...

for Linux distributions. Anaconda is used by

Red Hat Enterprise Linux Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is a commercial open-source Linux distribution developed by Red Hat for the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86-64, Power ISA, ARM64, and IBM Z and a desktop ...

Oracle Linux Oracle Linux (abbreviated OL, formerly known as Oracle Enterprise Linux or OEL) is a Linux distribution packaged and freely distributed by Oracle, available partially under the GNU General Public License since late 2006. It is compiled from Red ...

Scientific Linux Scientific Linux (SL) was a Linux distribution produced by Fermilab, CERN, DESY and by ETH Zurich. It is a free and open-source operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This product is derived from the free and open-source software ma ...

AlmaLinux AlmaLinux is a free and open source Linux distribution, created originally by CloudLinux to provide a community-supported, production-grade enterprise operating system that is binary-compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). The first st ...

CentOS CentOS (, from Community Enterprise Operating System; also known as CentOS Linux) is a Linux distribution that provides a free and open-source community-supported computing platform, functionally compatible with its upstream source, Red Hat En ...

MIRACLE LINUX MIRACLE LINUX is a Red Hat Enterprise Linux-based commercial Linux distribution in Japan, developed and supported by Cybertrust Japan Co., Ltd. MIRACLE LINUX 8.4 is a CentOS 8 compatible distribution. Overview MIRACLE LINUX Corporation, later ...

Qubes OS Qubes OS is a security-focused desktop Linux distribution that aims to provide security through isolation. Virtualization is performed by Xen, and user environments can be based on (with official support) Fedora or Debian, or (with communit ...

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both side ...

Sabayon Linux Sabayon Linux or Sabayon (formerly ''RR4 Linux'' and ''RR64 Linux''), was an Italian Gentoo-based Linux distribution created by Fabio Erculiani and the Sabayon development team. Sabayon followed the " out of the box" philosophy, aiming to give t ...

and

BLAG Linux and GNU BLAG Linux and GNU is a discontinued Linux distribution made by the Brixton Linux Action Group. BLAG is a discontinued, single-CD distro with applications desktop users "expect" from a desktop including multimedia, graphics, desktop internet app ...

, also in some less known and discontinued distros like Progeny Componentized Linux,

Asianux Asianux was a Linux distribution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. (RHEL) and jointly developed by companies in Japan, China, and South Korea, . This project was dissolved in September 2015. The Asianux trademark is held by companies in eac ...

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, Rpath Linux and VidaLinux.

Functionality

Anaconda offers a text-mode and GUI mode, so users can install on a wide range of systems. It is designed to be easily portable and supports a wide range of hardware platforms (

IA-32 IA-32 (short for "Intel Architecture, 32-bit", commonly called i386) is the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture, designed by Intel and first implemented in the 80386 microprocessor in 1985. IA-32 is the first incarnatio ...

Itanium Itanium ( ) is a discontinued family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture (formerly called IA-64). Launched in June 2001, Intel marketed the processors for enterprise servers and high-performance comput ...

DEC Alpha Alpha (original name Alpha AXP) is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Alpha was designed to replace 32-bit VAX complex instruction set compute ...

, IBM ESA/390,

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM– ...

ARMv8 ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...

). It supports installing from local storage devices like CD-ROM drives and harddisks as well as from network resources via FTP,

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide We ...

, or NFS. Installations can be automated with the use of a kickstart file, that automatically configures the installation, allowing users to run it with minimal supervision. Before starting the OS installation process, the installer checks the system hardware and resource requirements. Only if the requirements are satisfied does it start the installation process.

Technology

It is mainly written in Python with some modules written in C. It has a graphical frontend that is based on GTK+ 3/ PyGObject and designed with the Glade Interface Designer. Anaconda also has a custom text frontend with support for computers with

line printer A line printer prints one entire line of text before advancing to another line. Most early line printers were impact printers. Line printers are mostly associated with unit record equipment and the early days of digital computing, but the ...

like terminals, such as the IBM ESA/390 mainframes.

Under the hood

The Anaconda installer provides various useful tools and commands for both users with specific installation needs as well as for debugging issues with the installer itself or OS installation in general. Anaconda supports a rich set of options "Anaconda Boot Options"
/ref> that can be passed to the boot command line to influence installation behaviour. There is also a root shell running on TTY2 available for the user to inspect the installation environment during the installation run. There are also various useful files in the installation environment: * /tmp/anaconda.log - contains Anaconda related log messages (Anaconda also logs to journal) * /root/lorax-packages.log - contains a list of names and versions of all packages that have been used to create the installation image * /mnt/install/ks.cfg contains the kickstart used for the installation run (if any) After a successful installation, Anaconda stores various important files from the installation run on the system itself. This makes it possible to check how the system was installed even at a later time. * installation logs are stored in /var/log/anaconda * a kickstart file describing option selected during the installation run is stored in /root/anaconda-ks.cfg The anaconda-ks.cfg file found on a system can be used (possibly with small changes) to install a very similar system again.

References

External links

* {{Portal bar, Linux, Free and open-source software Fedora Project Free software programmed in C Free software programmed in Python Linux installation software Red Hat software Software that uses GTK Software that uses PyGObject

Functionality

Technology

Under the hood

See also

References

External links