The developers of the YaST installer used in openSUSE and SUSE Linux have published an update to the experimental installer D-Installer 0.4, which supports installation management via a web interface. At the same time, installation images have been prepared that are designed to familiarize you with the capabilities of D-Installer and provide the means to install the continuously updated edition of openSUSE Tumbleweed, as well as Leap 15.4 and Leap Micro 5.2 releases.
D-Installer is about separating the user interface from the YaST internals and making it possible to use different frontends. YaST libraries continue to be used to install packages, check equipment, partition disks, and other functions necessary for installation, on top of which a layer is implemented that abstracts access to libraries through a unified D-Bus interface. Among the development goals of D-Installer are mentioned the elimination of existing limitations of the graphical interface, the expansion of the possibilities for using YaST functionality in other applications, avoiding being tied to one programming language (the D-Bus API will allow creating add-ons in different languages), and encouraging the creation of alternative settings by community members.
For interaction with the user, a front-end built using web technologies has been prepared. The fontend includes a handler that provides access to D-Bus calls over HTTP and a web interface that is displayed to the user. The web interface is written in JavaScript using the React framework and PatternFly components. The service for binding the interface to D-Bus, as well as the built-in http server, are written in Ruby and built using ready-made modules developed by the Cockpit project, which are also used in Red Hat web configurators.
The installation is managed through the "Installation Summary" screen, which contains preparatory settings that are made before starting the installation, such as choosing the language and product to be installed, partitioning the disk, and managing users. The main difference between the new interface and YaST is that the transition to the settings does not require the launch of individual widgets and is offered immediately.
The new version of D-Installer implements a multi-process architecture, thanks to which the user interaction interface is no longer blocked during other work in the installer, such as reading metadata from the repository and installing packages. Introduced three internal installation stages: launching the installer, setting installation parameters, and installing. Support for installing various products has been implemented, for example, in addition to installing the openSUSE Tumbleweed edition, it is now possible to install the openSUSE Leap 15.4 and Leap Micro 5.2 releases. For each product, the installer selects different schemes for partitioning disk partitions, a set of packages, and security settings.
Additionally, work is underway to create a minimalistic system image that ensures the launch of the installer. The main idea is to package the installer components in the form of a container and use a special Iguana initrd boot environment to start the container. At the moment, YaST modules have already been adapted to work from the container for setting up time zones, keyboard, language, firewall, printing system, DNS, viewing the systemd log, managing programs, repositories, users and groups.
Source: opennet.ru