feat: Remove old Fluent version support

[mkundu1]

Context

Fluent versions before 24.2 are not currently supported by Ansys. So, we don't need to support those old versions in PyFluent. Also, as patches are not released for those Fluent versions, we shouldn't point users to use those versions.

Change Summary

1. Restrict the supported Fluent versions to 24.2 - 26.2 in code. I've included next dev version as it has been requested.
2. Update the minimum supported Fluent version to 24.2 in doc.
3. Added a CI script .ci\docker_data_cleaner.py to remove all docker data except the supported Fluent images. The script will be run before and after every job that starts a Fluent container. Currently, the self-hosted runners don't have the sufficient space to cache all supported Fluent images, but that won't be a problem anymore. I've also deleted other docker-related cleanup scripts.

Rationale

We have aligned the supported Fluent version range with the versions supported by Ansys.

Impact

Package size will be reduced. CI speedup is expected.

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR removes support for older Fluent versions (22.2, 23.1, 23.2, 24.1) and restricts PyFluent to support only Ansys Fluent versions 24.2 through 26.2, aligning with Ansys's officially supported version range.

Key Changes:

• Removed deprecated Fluent version enumerations from the codebase
• Updated all documentation to reflect minimum supported version of 24.2
• Replaced Docker cleanup scripts with a centralized cleaner that preserves supported version images
• Streamlined CI workflows by removing test matrices for unsupported versions

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 23 out of 23 changed files in this pull request and generated 7 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/ansys/fluent/core/utils/fluent_version.py	Removed enum values for unsupported Fluent versions (v222, v231, v232, v241) and added v262
tests/test_fluent_version.py	Removed test assertion for deprecated v232 version
doc/source/index.rst	Updated minimum supported version from 2022 R2 to 2024 R2
doc/source/getting_started/installation.rst	Updated minimum version requirement and example version references from 2022 R2 to 2024/2025 R2
doc/source/getting_started/faqs.rst	Updated version references and Python version support information
doc/source/user_guide/legacy/tui.rst	Updated TUI command construction documentation to reference 2024 R2 instead of older versions
README.rst	Updated dependency information with current version requirements and examples
.ci/docker_data_cleaner.py	Added new centralized Docker cleanup script that preserves supported image versions
Makefile	Replaced docker-clean-images with docker-clean-all-except-supported-images target
Multiple CI workflow files	Updated all workflows to use new Docker cleanup approach and removed unsupported versions from test matrices
doc/changelog.d/4690.added.md	Added changelog entry for feature

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 23 out of 23 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

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Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 51 out of 51 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

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Pull request overview

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[mkundu1]

Note: For the combination of new/patched pyfluent with unpatched Fluent version of 24.2 or later, the local connections will continue to work without any change in the user-script. Remote connections won't work unless the arguments allow_remote_host=True, insecure_mode=True are passed to pyfluent's connect_to_fluent.

[mhoeijm]

Is this change brought in as patch releases for older versions as well - or will just show up in the new minor (0.38) release? For transparency it probably deserves some extra notes or warnings on the getting-started or landing page to warn users of this incompatibility and potential risks, even for older pyfluent versions. Right now this change seems a bit hidden in the docs?