Anaconda is the installer for Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux-based operating system developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86, x86-64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86-64...

 and Fedora

Fedora (operating system)

Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...

.

Anaconda

Anaconda

An anaconda is a large, non-venomous snake found in tropical South America. Although the name actually applies to a group of snakes, it is often used to refer only to one species in particular, the common or green anaconda, Eunectes murinus, which is one of the largest snakes in the world.Anaconda...

s are lizard

Lizard

Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 3800 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains...

-eating snakes (similar to pythons), and the Caldera

Caldera OpenLinux

Caldera OpenLinux is a defunct Linux distribution that was created by the former Caldera Systems corporation. It was the early "business-oriented distribution" and foreshadowed the direction of developments that came to most other distributions and the Linux community generally.-Novell and...

 installation program was called “Lizard”, hence the name.

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

IA-32 , also known as x86-32, i386 or x86, is the CISC instruction-set architecture of Intel's most commercially successful microprocessors, and was first implemented in the Intel 80386 as a 32-bit extension of x86 architecture...

, Itanium

Itanium

Itanium is a family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture . Intel markets the processors for enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems...

, DEC Alpha

DEC Alpha

Alpha, originally known as Alpha AXP, is a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , designed to replace the 32-bit VAX complex instruction set computer ISA and its implementations. Alpha was implemented in microprocessors...

, IBM ESA/390, PowerPC

PowerPC

PowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...

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

File Transfer Protocol

File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...

, HTTP

File Transfer Protocol

File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...

, or NFS. Installations can be automated with the use of a kickstart

Kickstart (Linux)

The Red Hat Kickstart installation method is used primarily by the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system to automatically perform unattended operating system installation and configuration...

 file, that automatically configures the installation, allowing users to run it with minimal supervision.

Technology

It is mainly written in Python

Python (programming language)

Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...

 with some modules written in C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

. It has a graphical frontend that is based on PyGTK

PyGTK

PyGTK is a set of Python wrappers for the GTK+ graphical user interface library. PyGTK is free software and licensed under the LGPL. It is analogous to PyQt and wxPython which are python wrappers for Qt and wxWidgets respectively. Its original author is the prominent GNOME developer James Henstridge...

 and designed with the Glade Interface Designer

Glade Interface Designer

Glade Interface Designer is a graphical user interface builder for GTK+, with additional components for GNOME. In its third version, Glade is programming language–independent, and does not produce code for events, but rather an XML file that is then used with an appropriate binding .Glade is...

 as well as a text frontend using newt

Newt (programming library)

Newt is a programming library for color text mode, widget-based user interfaces. Newt can be used to add stacked windows, entry widgets, checkboxes, radio buttons, labels, plain text fields, scrollbars, etc., to text user interfaces...

.

Availability and usage

It is available as Free software

Free software

Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...

 under the terms of the GNU General Public License

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

 (GPL).

Anaconda installer is used by RHEL

Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a Linux-based operating system developed by Red Hat and targeted toward the commercial market. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is released in server versions for x86, x86-64, Itanium, PowerPC and IBM System z, and desktop versions for x86 and x86-64...

, Fedora

Fedora (operating system)

Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...

 and a number of other projects.

See also

• Ubiquity
  Ubiquity (software)
  Ubiquity is a simple Linux installer for Ubuntu and its derivatives. It runs on LiveCD and has a Qt frontend and a GTK+ frontend. Ubiquity was first introduced in Ubuntu 6.06 .-Features:* Internationalization support...
  
  
• Hackaconda
  Hackaconda (software)
  Hackaconda is a patch for stage2 boot image of Red Hat Enterprise Linux of versions 5.3, 5.4 and 5.5 which adds possibility to use SCSI LUN instead of hard-drives device name for OS installation...