Calamares

Calamares Migration

Tue, 19 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0200

The Calamares project is still in-the-process-of migrating to Codeberg.org. Today, the website on Codeberg has been updated with new information and documentation for the new home. The existing site at calamares.io has been updated to refer people to the new home, pending DNS updates that will complete the migration.

Important changes to the website:

The latest news title is shown just below the latest release
The latest release is now only Calamares itself
The GPG key for signing Calamares releases has been updated
The calamares-extensions repository has been folded into the main Calamares repository
The deploycala.py script and its documentation have been removed (because the script was dangerous to use, and superceded by ci/ scripts in all situations)

Calamares 3.4.0 released

Mon, 21 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0200

A test release of Calamares, built from the Codeberg repository, was released today. It marks the beginning of the 3.4 series, which does not have a real “minor-worthy” change. Much like the start of the 3.3 series, it will take a while for any API changes to arrive and then settle down.

However, this release does mark the full change-over of releases from GitHub to Codeberg. There are no special release notes for 3.4.0, as a 3.4.1 will follow shortly with fixes for the release-process.

Calamares 3.3.14 released

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0100

First of 2025, with a bunch of internal improvements in the Python bindings, an undo-hook for pages (which rolls back changes that the keyboard and timezone pages may have made to the system) and improvements to the partition module.

This release contains contributions from (alphabetically by given name):

Adriaan de Groot
Evan James
TNE
vincent PENVERN

Core

The Python bindings have been re-organized (source) and made more consistent. At least one valid Python program would work with the Boost::Python bindings, but not the pybind11 bindings. A memory-corruption problem in the Boost::Python bindings was resolved.
Steps in the UI now have a hook to undo any changes they have made to the live system, if the user cancels the installation.

Modules

keyboard module undoes changes to the keyboard layout if the user cancels the installation (returning the system to whatever layout was in use when Calamares started). (#2377, #2431)
locale module undoes changes to the timezone. (#2377, #2431)
partition module stores a global storage value in luksPassphrase, for later modules that need to manipulate the encrypted partition. (thanks vincent, #2424)
partition module no longer clear (unmounts) a Ventoy device. (thanks TNE, #2427)
partition module has configurable exceptions for the clear-mounts (unmount) job. The exceptions have a few hard-coded “always included” entries, which now include Ventoy alongside some Fedora-specific entries.

Feedback

If you experience an issue with Calamares, please tell us all about it on the Calamares issue tracker. For a full change list, see the full list of issues closed within the current generation (which is many releases).

Calamares 3.3.13 released

Tue, 31 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0100

A last-minute (of 2024) release, which brings a bunch of improvements from Lubuntu and elsewhere, mostly for the partition module.

This release contains contributions from (alphabetically by given name):

Aaron Rainbolt
Adriaan de Groot
Anke Boersma
Ching Hsü
Jakob Petsovits
Masato TOYOSHIMA
Simon Quigley
Vladyslav Prudius

Core

Fewer compile warnings with most-recent Qt versions.
Support systemd and consolekit block-suspend, not just KDE Plasma block-suspend, during installation. (thanks Jakob, #2404)

Modules

dracut module has more freedom to specify program options. (thanks Simon, #2401)
partition module improved some user-visible messages. (thanks Masato, #2412)
partition module re-scans available devices when selecting “manual” partitioning mode, avoiding a crash. (thanks Masato, #2414)
partition module can hide the LVM buttons during manual partitioning, if the distro does not want to support LVM. (#2413)
partition module can restrict what filesystems a user applies where, e.g. ensuring EFI is a FAT32 partition. (thanks Aaron, #2400)
unpackfs module supports skipping installation media if it is not present, e.g. depending on how the live media is booted. (thanks Simon, #2410)

Translations

Calamares translations are usually done through Transifex, but some users provide translation updates via patches, instead.

uk thanks Vladyslav Prudius
zh_CN thanks Ching Hsü

Feedback

Calamares 3.3.12 released

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100

Another quick release, primarily to resolve build issues with the calamares-extensions repository.

This release contains contributions from (alphabetically by given name):

Adriaan de Groot

Core

This release repairs the Calamares configuration file which is used by external Calamares modules – calamares-extensions in particular.

Modules

users module always uses a 3-digit UMASK if one is specified.

Feedback

Calamares 3.3.11 released

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0100

A quick release with an important crash fix in the partition module, new features in the unpackfs module (from Lubuntu) and a new unpackfsc module (moved from the calamares-extensions repository) for an alternative way to unpack filesystems into the target system.

This release contains contributions from (alphabetically by given name):

Adriaan de Groot
Jakob Petsovits
Simon Quigley

Core

No notable changes

Modules

unpackfs now supports a condition configuration option for conditional installation / unsquash. (thanks Simon)
unpackfsc module imported from Calamares-extensions, and extended with the same condition configuration.
partition crash fixed when swap was using the wrong end-sector in some GPT configurations. (thanks Jakob, #2367)

Feedback

Calamares 3.3.10 released

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0200

A release with improvements in a number of modules, with some last-minute delay due to weirdness in the unit-tests.

This release contains contributions from (alphabetically by given name):

Aaron Rainbolt
Adriaan de Groot
Evan James
Neal Gompa

Core

Support for “rwx”-style permissions-strings everywhere permissions are written. Previously only octal was accepted (e.g. “755”) but you can now write the permissions out like they would be reported by ls (e.g. “rwxr-xr-x”).

Modules

keyboard Repaired summary messages with strange formatting. (#2364)
keyboard Can update KDE Plasma configuration in Wayland. (thanks Neal, #2264)
locale Repaired summary messages with strange formatting. (#2364)
partition Module fixed unwanted behavior with the encryption checkbox. (thanks Aaron, #2376)
umount Correctly unmounts the root filesystem of the target. (thanks Evan)
users Supports a new home_permissions setting to override the distro’s useradd configuration of the umask. Supports octal and rwx-style specifications of permissions. Other places that use permissions now also support octal and rwx-style. (#2362)
welcome Follows system styling colors (e.g. Dark Mode).

Feedback

Calamares 3.3.9 released

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0200

A release with minor bugfixes and improvements specifically in the Arabic translation.

A reminder for distributions using Calamares with full disk encryption: if you are using the luksbootkeyfile module, it must be placed before the fstab module in settings.conf. If it comes after, then the keyfile will be missing from crypttab and the user will be asked for their password multiple times.

This release contains contributions from (alphabetically by given name):

Adriaan de Groot
Evan James
Luca Matei Pintilie

Core

Improved schemas for configuration files
Support for Interlingue in Qt 6.7

Modules

Placed luksbootkeyfile before fstab in the example settings.conf (#2356, Evan)
packages module xbcs package manager now logs progress messages (#2359, Luca)
partition module mentions creating a swap file in its summary (#2320, Adriaan)

Feedback

Calamares 3.3.8 released

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 00:00:00 +0200

A release with bugfixes in several modules (especially the partition module), and a new feature in shellprocess and just about every place that runs commands – that includes contextualprocess jobs, process job modules, and other places.

This release contains contributions from (alphabetically by first name):

Adriaan de Groot
Evan James
Lorenzo Faletra
Tj
Victor Fuentes

Core

nothing in particular

Modules

contextualprocess see shellprocess.
mount module now correctly mounts luks and luks2-encrypted swap. (thanks Victor)
partition avoids a crash with specific checkbox-presets. (thanks Evan)
partition had a bug where manual partitioning on MBR systems might skip the installation of a bootloader, even though the visible bootloader combo-box showed that it would be installed. (see #2318)
partition could calculate an incorrect partition size when installing to very specific partition sizes, and now leaves a few more sectors for secondary GPT tables. (thanks Tj)
shellprocess now supports a verbose key (globally and per-command) which logs command output line-by-line.
users module defaults password salt to yescrypt. (thanks Lorenzo)

Feedback

Calamares 3.3.7 released

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0200

A release mostly intended to get the process moving again, although it has a few new features and some bugfixes. Since 3.3.6 did not get a release announcement, that is included in this post as well.

What does “get the process moving” mean? Well, it’s been two months since the last release, and planning the release for “when this issue is fixed” – whatever I happen to be working on – is taking too long. There are a couple of tough bugs to investigate, but they should not hold up progress on other fronts.

Calamares 3.3.7 (2024-06-20)

This release contains contributions from (alphabetically by first name):

Adriaan de Groot
Eugene San
Evan James
Ivan Borzenkov
Sohrab Behdani
Vincent Penvern
Vladislav Nepogodin

Core

Updated clang-formatting
Some C++20 future-proofing (thanks Vladislav)
CommandList (used by contextualprocess and shellprocess) now supports globalstorage keys as substitutable variables.

Modules

contextualprocess see shellprocess.
fstab module does not add an encryption keyfile if it does not exist. (thanks Eugene)
initcpiocfg has some new configuration settings to more carefully adjust hooks for initcpio.
keyboard module handles Persian (fa) layout better. (thanks Sohrab)
keyboard module handles other non-ascii layout better. (thanks Ivan)
partition module did not filter out invalid fstab entries; they were not written, either, so no net change.
partition module now has a configurable default check-state for the encryption checkbox. (thanks Vincent)
shellprocess commands now support globalstorage variables, which are written as ${gs[key]}, where key is a dotted string that selects the globalstorage key to use (like in contextualprocess variable-selectors) and ${gs[ and ]} are literal characters.

Calamares 3.3.6 (2024-04-16)

This release contains contributions from (alphabetically by first name):

Adriaan de Groot
Anke Boersma
Eugene San
Evan James
Harald Sitter
Mike Stemle
Peter Jung
Simon Quigley

Core

Various Qt6-related fixes.
Calamares now prevents sleep and suspend while the installation is running, so that unattended installs do not accidentally fall asleep.

Modules

bootloader Adds “splash” to kernel parameters if plymouth is present. (thanks Eugene)
locale Now picks the correct timezone for Dubai, Muscat, Tehran.
plymouthcfg Use plymouth-set-default-theme to avoid issues with configuration. (thanks Peter)
users module now supports enrolling in Active Directory, if enabled. (thanks Simon)