Calamares 3.0.0

The Calamares team and Manjaro team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Calamares 3.0, a feature release which brings many improvements over the 2.4 series, as well as some new features.

Calamares is a distribution-independent system installer, with an advanced partitioning feature for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated "Replace Partition" option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing. Calamares is designed to be customizable by distribution maintainers without need for cumbersome patching, thanks to third party branding and external modules support.

Calamares 3.0 includes countless fixes and improvements to the core application and to the modules, as well as an all new PythonQt-based module interface. The PythonQt interface is optional, and allows module developers to create view modules in Python with Qt.

To build Calamares 3.0 with PythonQt support, the -DWITH_PYTHONQT=ON parameter must be passed to the cmake call. PythonQt 3.1 or later (built against Qt 5 and Python 3) is required.

This release also comes with a thoroughly documented dummypythonqt module, as an example on how to develop PythonQt Calamares modules.

Calamares 3.0 drops support for KPMcore 2. KPMcore 3.0.2 or later is required.

If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it on the Upstream issue tracker and with installation problems with Manjaro Linux on our Manjaro issue tracker.

Calamares 2.4.5

The Calamares team and Manjaro team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Calamares 2.4.5, a bug fix release that delivers improvements and fixes for recently discovered issues.

Calamares is a distribution-independent system installer, with an advanced partitioning feature for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated "Replace Partition" option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing. Calamares is designed to be customizable by distribution maintainers without need for cumbersome patching, thanks to third party branding and external modules support.

Highlights of this release include:

• fixed a path handling issue which could sometimes occur when reusing an existing EFI system partition;
• fixes and reliability improvements for the internet connection check in the welcome module;
• fixed GRUB deployment with 32-bit UEFI firmware (note: this also affects some 64-bit systems which ship a 32-bit UEFI firmware);
• fixed operating system detection for automatic dual boot setup in GRUB;
• added Btrfs subvolumes setup for @ and @home in automated install modes (note: manual partitioning still doesn't support Btrfs subvolumes, as this requires further work in both KPMcore and Calamares);
• fixed a security issue which could happen when using manual partitioning to set up a system with an encrypted root partition, but with an unencrypted separate /boot partition.

The partitioning module of Calamares 2.4.5 requires KPMcore 2.2 or 2.2.1. Further distribution-specific deployment adjustments may be needed for full LUKS support, for more details see the Calamares wiki.

If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it on the Upstream issue tracker and with installation problems with Manjaro Linux on our Manjaro issue tracker.

Calamares 2.4.4

The Calamares team and Manjaro team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Calamares 2.4.4, a bug fix release that delivers improvements and fixes for recently discovered issues.

Calamares is a distribution-independent system installer, with an advanced partitioning feature for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated "Replace Partition" option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing. Calamares is designed to be customizable by distribution maintainers without need for cumbersome patching, thanks to third party branding and external modules support.

Highlights of this release include:

• improved EFI system partition flag management (this removes a dependency on sgdisk);
• improved parsing of SDDM configuration;
• support for selecting visible groups by default in the netinstall module;
• added option of updating the packages database before performing package operations;
• added support for try_install and try_remove entries in the packages module configuration;
• fixed potential failure in unpackfs module (caused by inability to write extended attributes to a filesystem which doesn't support them).

The partitioning module of Calamares 2.4.4 depends on KPMcore 2.2 or later. Further distribution-specific deployment adjustments may be needed for full LUKS support, for more details see the Calamares wiki.

If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it on the Upstream issue tracker and with installation problems with Manjaro Linux on our Manjaro issue tracker.

Calamares 2.4.3

The Calamares team and Manjaro team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Calamares 2.4.3, a bug fix release that delivers improvements and fixes for recently discovered issues.

Calamares is a distribution-independent system installer, with an advanced partitioning feature for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated "Replace Partition" option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing. Calamares is designed to be customizable by distribution maintainers without need for cumbersome patching, thanks to third party branding and external modules support.

Highlights of this release include:

• added support for C++/Qt batch job plugins;
• new dummycpp job module as an example for module developers;
• fixed user creation so it obeys the list of default groups for new users;
• added Deepin support to the displaymanager module;
• fixed an issue which could cause a failed install with LUKS if other LUKS partitions are already present.

The partitioning module of Calamares 2.4.3 depends on KPMcore 2.2 or later. Further distribution-specific deployment adjustments may be needed for full LUKS support, for more details see the Calamares wiki.

If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it on the Upstream issue tracker and with installation problems with Manjaro Linux on our Manjaro issue tracker.

Calamares 2.4.2.1

The Calamares team and Manjaro team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Calamares 2.4.2.1, a minor fix release that delivers improvements and fixes for recently discovered issues.

Calamares is a distribution-independent system installer, with an advanced partitioning feature for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated "Replace Partition" option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing. Calamares is designed to be customizable by distribution maintainers without need for cumbersome patching, thanks to third party branding and external modules support.

Highlights of this release include:

• [initramfscfg] New module: pre-configuration for update-initramfs
• [grubcfg] Fix mismatched quoting and escaping
• [dracutlukscfg] New module: pre-configuration for dracut+LUKS
• [grubcfg] Add rd.luks.uuid to GRUB_CMDLINE (fixes unbootable system with dracut)
• [grubcfg] Only write rd.luks.uuid if dracut is present and leave other initramfs generators clean
• [grubcfg] Unlock encrypted swap if exists for dracut
• [grubcfg] Compare integers to integers, not strings
• [branding] bump to 16.10

The partitioning module of Calamares 2.4.2.1 depends on KPMcore 2.2 or later. Further distribution-specific deployment adjustments may be needed for full LUKS support, for more details see the Calamares wiki.

If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it on the Upstream issue tracker and with installation problems with Manjaro Linux on our Manjaro issue tracker.

Calamares 2.4.2

The Calamares team and Manjaro team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Calamares 2.4.2, a bug fix release that delivers improvements and fixes for recently discovered issues.

Calamares is a distribution-independent system installer, with an advanced partitioning feature for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated "Replace Partition" option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing. Calamares is designed to be customizable by distribution maintainers without need for cumbersome patching, thanks to third party branding and external modules support.

Highlights of this release include:

• Use the target system's boot name in partitioning summary widget;
• Write configurable options to crypttab (default: luks)
• Do not omit "/" from crypttab;
• Bump QT_VERSION to 5.6 in cmake.
• Fix dependency list in README.md

The partitioning module of Calamares 2.4.2 depends on KPMcore 2.2 or later. Further distribution-specific deployment adjustments may be needed for full LUKS support, for more details see the Calamares wiki.

If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it on the Upstream issue tracker and with installation problems with Manjaro Linux on our Manjaro issue tracker.

Calamares 2.4.1.2

The Calamares team and Manjaro team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Calamares 2.4.1.2, a minor bug fix release that solves a few issues that were discovered since the Calamares 2.4.1.1 release.

Calamares is a distribution-independent system installer, with an advanced partitioning feature for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated "Replace Partition" option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing. Calamares is designed to be customizable by distribution maintainers without need for cumbersome patching, thanks to third party branding and external modules support.

Highlights of this release include:

• Added support for writing keymap data to /etc/default/keyboard
• Removed target resolv.conf before proceeding
• Added new modules (chrootcfg, servicescfg)
• Dropped dependency on chfn for users module
• Fixed locale filtering for UTF-8 on Fedora
• Made writeEtcDefaultKeyboard an option in keyboard.conf
• Allow disabling automated LUKS modes
• Fixed format of settings.conf

The partitioning module of Calamares 2.4.1.2 depends on KPMcore 2.2 or later. Further distribution-specific deployment adjustments may be needed for full LUKS support, for more details see the Calamares wiki.

If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it on the Upstream issue tracker and with installation problems with Manjaro Linux on our Manjaro issue tracker.

Calamares 2.4.1.1

The Calamares team and Manjaro team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Calamares 2.4.1.1, a minor bug fix release that solves a few issues that were discovered since the Calamares 2.4.1 release.

Calamares is a distribution-independent system installer, with an advanced partitioning feature for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated "Replace Partition" option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing. Calamares is designed to be customizable by distribution maintainers without need for cumbersome patching, thanks to third party branding and external modules support.

Highlights of this release include:

• fixed VFAT filename handling in bootloader module
• added a warning in debug output, when the RequirementsChecker is misconfigured
• replaced hardwarecfg with mhwdcfg
• include the "prefer Budgie before Gnome" patch into displaymanager module

The partitioning module of Calamares 2.4.1.1 depends on KPMcore 2.2 or later. Further distribution-specific deployment adjustments may be needed for full LUKS support, for more details see the Calamares wiki.

If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it on the Upstream issue tracker and with installation problems with Manjaro Linux on our Manjaro issue tracker.

Calamares 2.4.1

The Calamares team and Manjaro team is happy to announce the immediate availability of Calamares 2.4.1, a bug fix release that solves a few issues that were discovered since the Calamares 2.4 release.

Calamares is a distribution-independent system installer, with an advanced partitioning feature for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated "Replace Partition" option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing. Calamares is designed to be customizable by distribution maintainers without need for cumbersome patching, thanks to third party branding and external modules support.

Highlights of this release include:

• fixed how the timezone setting is applied, so certain environments like KDE Plasma always obey the setting on first boot;
• fixed timezone selector behaviour, so that a timezone changes affect the live system immediately;
• improved partition scanner code so it always excludes ISO9660 volumes (to avoid showing the live USB stick or optical disk in the devices list);
• future-proofed and optimized the codebase a bit to remove the soon to be deprecated Q_FOREACH construct and avoid deep copies of Qt containers.

The partitioning module of Calamares 2.4.1 depends on KPMcore 2.2 or later. Further distribution-specific deployment adjustments may be needed for full LUKS support, for more details see the Calamares wiki.

If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it on the Upstream issue tracker and with installation problems with Manjaro Linux on our Manjaro issue tracker.