Recipes
This is how-to about creating own installer from the disk image.
Creating your own installer installer
Here is the steps to create your own installer.
Ingredients
- Computer with Windows 10 + USB3 interface
- Passmark ImageUSB
- 2 x USB3 disks
You can use USB sticks but it makes the process very very slow. So use USB3 disks. USB based docking station is fine but you’d need two slot docks. USB2 is okay but it would take 3x slower. - Installer image
Recipe
- Download ImageUSB if you don’t have it already.
- Download Installer image “inst_amd64.img.zip”
- Unzip inst_amd64.img.zip and make inst_amd64.img.
- Plug in a USB disk. Let’s call this Baby Disk.
- Bake Baby Disk
Start ImageUSB, choose Baby Disk on step 1, step 2 is left as si, step 3 – choose image source “inst_amd64.img/inst_amd64.img” (Browse/Save), then step 4 “Write”. The process takes about 5 minutes depending on the disk speed. - Unplug Baby disk and let it cool
- Plug in second USB disk. Let’s call this Mom Disk.
- Bake Mom Disk – steps are identical to Bake Baby Disk
- Restart computer, and boot from Mom Disk in update mode
When it boots, you have 10 seconds to make a selection change from boot screen. You need to choose “Software Update” which is the third option of boot menu. First menu is the default but for Mom Disk to have a baby image, you need to boot in update mode. - Wait for WCE Triage web page to show up.
Very often, you have to hit “ALT-F4” to restart the browser. (I will fix this at some point) - Create an installer image from Baby Disk
Plug in the Baby Disk. Choose “Create Disk Image” tab. Hit “Reset” button so the Baby Disk shows up.
Click the left check box to select the Baby Disk.
On the top “Triage 64bit USB flash”.
Then, click “Save”.
Once it’s complete, the Mom Disk contains the disk image of Baby Disk which is the installer itself. - Shutdown computer and unplug Baby Disk
Tasting
- Boot from Mom Disk again, but this time choose the first menu option.
- Once the web page shows up for Triage, plug in the Baby Disk again.
- Go into “Load Disk Image”, choose the disk image of Baby Disk you just created, and load the disk image to the Baby Disk
This is so that the freshly created partition on the disk is expanded to fill entire disk instead of the disk image file which is only 3.5GB.
Creating your own content loading disk
Ingredients
- Powerful computer
- Existing Ubuntu computer with WCE contents, or a disk that contains the WCE contents
- Baby Disk
Recipe
- If necessary, clean up the Ubuntu, such as vacuuming file system journals, truncating log files, and most of all, empty trash. apt’s package cache is also large, and recommended to remove them all.
- Boot from Baby Disk in Update mode
- Go to “Create Disk Image”
- Choose the Ubuntu disk, Choose “WCE Ubuntu 18.04LTS”, and “Save”
Unlike small installer image, Ubuntu 18.04LTS with WCE contents requires 45GB disk space, and thus a lot of CPU power to compress the disk image.
Once done, now the Baby Disk contains the master Ubuntu 18.04LTS with WCE contents!
Once the disk image is created, you don’t need to do the same time consuming compression. You can just copy the disk image file to other installers.
Making USB stick installer
This is also “Triage”. When there is no payload on the usb stick, all it does is to gather up the info of computer and display.
Ingredients
- Mom Disk
- USB stick
- A computer
Recipe
- Boot from Mom Disk with first menu option
- After it boots up, go to “Load Disk Image”, choose USB stick, and “Load”
Copying Disk image from one installer to other
Unfortunately, there is no user interface to copy the disk image. You need to do this on Ubuntu computer for now. It’s probably better to copy the disk image file to the computer first, and then copy to other USB sticks. Writing to USB stick is VERY VERY VERY slow. I have tried a few different ways to make this process faster but so far, the fastest possible way requires making a disk image, which isn’t automated yet.