The openSUSE developers announced Recently, the release of the new version of its installer «Agama 10», a new installer designed to replace the classic SUSE and openSUSE installation interface.
One of its pMain features is UI Separation of the internal parts of YaST. Agama introduces the possibility to manage the installation through multiple interfaces, such as a web interface.
Key objectives Agama's development includes the removing the limitations of the traditional graphical interface, the expansion of YaST functionality for use in other applications, independence from a single programming language and encouraging the creation of alternative configurations by the community.
What's new in Agama 10?
In the new version of Agama, one of the main novelties is lthe ability to generate a QR code that contains a link to open the installer's web interface in a browser. This implemented change greatly simplifies the connection to the installer from a smartphone, providing greater comfort to users who wish to interact with the remote installation process.
Another notable improvement of this new version of Agama 10 is the Adding components to highlight syntax when editing configuration files in JSON format using the «agama config edit» command. By default, Vim is used as an editor, although it is possible to specify any other editor using the EDITOR environment variable. This feature makes editing configuration files easier by making the content more readable and helping to avoid errors.
As for the mode of automatic installation, they have Expanded capabilities by allowing the creation of LVM partition groups, LVM logical partitions, as well as LVM pools and partitions with dynamic allocation of storage space (light provisioning). Although the use of pre-existing logical partitions and partition groups is not yet supported, Two new modes for automatic partition deletion have been introduced: unconditional deletion and deletion only when necessary, that is, when there is not enough space to create the specified partitions.
Agama It also incorporates a new boot parameter, called “agama.install_url”, which allows you to specify a custom repository URL to install packages other than the default ones in the configuration.
In addition, Developers can now create web installer interface components using TypeScript. It is mentioned that in an effort to improve the code, A gradual migration from JavaScript to TypeScript is plannedas improvements are made. The web interface, meanwhile, now uses the TanStack Query framework to manage state asynchronously.
In the web interface, it is now used the framework TanStack Query to manage the state efficiently. This framework provides a mechanism to automatically obtain or update the state, which simplifies the process of managing real-time data. TanStack Query handles important tasks like caching, data recovery and error handling, eliminating the need to implement these functionalities manually.
As for available storage, capacity has been expanded in Live mode, going from 500 MB to 3.5 GB, allowing for the installation of additional packages after downloading them. On the other hand, automated testing of the web interface is no longer done with Playwright, but with Puppeteer, a JavaScript library that facilitates test automation.
Finally, the cInstaller Administration Components which were previously managed via DBus Now they use an HTTP client that accesses the HTTP server integrated into the installer.
finally if you are interested in knowing more about it, you can check the details in the following link
For those interested in trying out the new installer, live builds supporting various architectures are available. These builds allow the installation of the openSUSE Leap 16 alpha release and the MicroOS-based container edition.