this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025

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126

openSUSE’s Agama Installer Lands with Enhanced Web UI (linuxiac.com)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I just installed openSUSE last night and I was thinking at the time about how crappy and dated the installer is. I mean, it does the job if you know what you’re doing but it certainly doesn’t even try to make it easy for anyone non-techie.

I’m not really a fan of Calamares, I think the whole concept of booting into an OS and then using it to install another OS is a bit weird and could confuse people.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

installer … with enhanced web UI

∘ ∘ ∘ ( °ヮ° ) ?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

seems like yet another electron app that only runs locally. i'm guessing that hiring traditional desktop ui developers is getting harder and more expensive over time, so they don't bother anymore and just hire webdevs instead

[–] [email protected] 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The purpose of having a web-based user interface is to enable remote installation using a web-browser, which I imagine could be a pretty common use-case for server installation. Since a web-based interface is necessary for remote installation, it makes sense to use the same interface locally instead of having two independent interfaces.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Makes sense, especially for server environments

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

A quick glance at the Agama repository suggests that the server is written in rust and the front end in react. I've no idea how it all works in practice as I don't use Tumbleweed any more. I really liked the yast installer but it was getting old.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

It worked perfectly well to install though? Like why does it matter if its old

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

That's kind of like asking why we're not all driving Ford Model T cars, after all you could drive in them just fine. Technology moves on, best practice moves on, Hell, everything moves on.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

anyone who thinks web tech is best practice on the fucking desktop should be expelled from the whole field

said ford would consume way too much gas and produce way too much noise, among other things. but what's the problem with the current installer? that it doesn't have curly corners, and that it has too many options which is confusing to those with no reading comprehension?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So I suppose you never use a browser to run a web application on the desktop :thinking_face: Anyway it;s a client server architecture designed for remote installation on servers as well as local installations. It makes sense to have one installer do both.

As to the old installer, when you knew about the un-obvious features, it was brilliant from a user perspective, but I'm willing to bet that from a developer perspective, it was hard to maintain, hard to add new features to, and fragile.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

I'm already running too many browsers in some trenchcoat on the desktop.

Anyway it;s a client server architecture

that does not warrant a browser. not only JS can do HTTP requests

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

It certainly worked and was full featured, but the interface wasn't very good. Having to edit the network interfaces to configure them wasn't good UI for example (the partition editor works the same way). It also took until my second install (that was quite some time ago) to figure out that I could pick what software I wanted to install.

Anyway, a lot of things could be made clearer for first time users.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm not a SuSE user - but did they not have the ability of using LVM or setting the hostname during install (GUI) prior to this?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

I don't know about LVM but hostname was configurable in the old/current installer, this is news for a new installer to replace the old one.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

That's great ! Is there any chance we will switch to Agama instead of Calamares? Cause instead of fixing the LVM installation issue they just drop the support...

[+] [email protected] -16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

I was considering switching from Windows to Linux but man, I don't know, if only they had one more installer... /s

Why people can't just use Calamares and stop reinventing the wheel?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Why people can't just use and stop reinventing the wheel?

This is a really dumb take. If you don't like it, don't use it. They got an idea and implement it? Good for them And what does that even have to do with switching to Linux?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

i'd usually agree, but in this case, it feels like a cost-cutting measure. webdevs are cheaper and more available, so it's cheaper for them to just rewrite the installer in electron than pay more expensive desktop developers to maintain their existing installer

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Assumptions are assumptions. The server is written in Rust, the idea is to be flexible with control and the optional UI. It has a big focus on Enterprise and things that were difficult with YAST are easier with Agama, such as unattended installation and using Ansible. For a simpler use case you can boot it up on your headless server and connect to https://agama.local/ in a web browser and continue the installation.

[+] [email protected] -11 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Instead of wasting time on something that has already 1k iterations, they could redirect that effort on something beneficial to Linux.
Any person contributing to this new installer is a person less contributing to something distro agnostic, which is a loss for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Any project is beneficial if someone is passionate about doing it.

The “this person shouldn’t work on this project, they should work on something that benefits me” line is selfish as hell.

If the projects you see aren’t the projects you want, then DIY. But don’t tell people they wasted their time because you don’t want to use their software.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Why isn't everyone working on Arch instead of wasting time with all those other distros?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Never used arch but I share the same feeling for distro sometimes. A linux distro can either:

Introduce a new way of doing things, or some big novelty
Being a complete waste of time and effort The vast majority is the second case, but sometimes we are lucky and we get something new.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

I am personally certain you are open to learn and I will try to explain why it is like that.

Because the openness of Linux makes it prone to a model of iterations if someone desires and has the need for it. Instead of Windows and Microsoft only offering a standardized path for users to take.

Plus, it is not a waste of time either if you are passionate about it. Many people working on Linux are often doing it on their spare time. It is an unpaid job done because that one person thought it would be nice to do it.

On your second point, I also disagree. Many languages exist and some people might not like a certain implementation of a software in a certain language, for many reasons. Thus, desire to port it to another arises and they do it. Again, Linux and open source software is by essence an invitation to take something and modify it as you wish.

We often think that someone writing a piece of software in a language did it because it was the best language to do it. It is quite untrue. For many years Linux was mostly written in C language. Rust arrived and some people saw its perks as it was more secure in some aspects. Then they started to write modules for Linux in Rust. It brought up some discussions across the community because views diverged between its members. Some didn't want to see Rust take a larger part into the kernel and some wanted it to be more present.

Also, programming languages and softwares are written by humans and humans have bias. We often have preferences or personal experiences shaping our lives. So points of view are divergent. Like right now, you have some arguments and I have mine. All that helps us evolve and change our views on the world around us.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Rather than downvoting. This is a good teachable moment

I used to think this way, that it was about efficiency exclusively

But the reality is, any contribution is better than none, and a lot of these things implemented you don't really understand how important they are until a while later often

One consideration also is that Germany is apparently considering to continue their Linux migration, so things like this may also be based on feedback from admins

Suse has definitely carved their own niche as a Linux distro and it's actually sad they're not more successful because a lot of their tools are pretty cool

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I understand but that's not how I think when I develop something.

I usually try to find a tool, library, program or functionality that is missing. If I find something that does that already, I use it. If it is missing something or is not perfect, I try to contribute to it.

I strongly believe in joining efforts to build better tools and that software quality can soffer from too high fragmentation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Except doesn't this replace their old tool? So, its not really fragmenting anything if its replacing an existing project.

Fragmentation isn't great, but it can be beneficial in some cases too. I've contributed to a number of projects.

Over the last 20-30 years, I've seen plenty of projects fail, and new ones take over.

If you take a look at arts/eaudio and the other sound servers of 20 years ago. All failed, because Pulseaudio consolidated and killed them eventually. Now, Pulseaudio is on its way to getting killed by Pipewire. And one could argue its a waste of resources.. but, the changeover is actually super awesome (for JACK)

One other good example of the fragmentation argument was Xfree86. Lots of people argued against Xorg at the time, and ultimately, Xfree86 died ages ago. If you asked me 20 years ago, I would have said KDE was dead, but now Gnome and KDE and carved out VERY different products, that suit very different people. Both are awesome in their own way

Everyone was freaking out when devFS got deprecated. But, udev was an amazing replacement

Linux is evolving FAR quicker than Windows or MAC (mac OS has barely changed in a decade). And, many ideas introduced in linux are stolen by Windows and Apple.

At the end of the day though, sometimes a rewrite is needed of things. What really matters is that it doesn't fragment the desktop experience (and, it won't in this case)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Because they don't fix a 5 years old bug about LVMs? instead they write a post on how to drop support for it?

Right now you have to do some sketchy bug/workaround to make it work with LVM...

So yeah drop calamares, hello new installer :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

sure making a new installer from scratch, whats more with web tech, is definitely easier than fixing the existing solution thats almost perfect

[–] [email protected] -4 points 3 days ago

Great if you are allergic to using anything that dosent adhere to the latest design style, I guess

But the last installer was more than enough.