Creating image and modifying a kickstart file for your device adaptation needs

In this presentation the creation of MeeGo images with MIC Image Creator are discussed. First the overall process will be shown starting with the MIC Image Creator and the kickstart files. Giving an example of the currently available official kickstart files for the e.g. Netbook, Handset and IVI verticals as well as the different devices and architectures. These official kickstart files give a good template for community members as a base to start creating a new kickstart and image for a new hardware adaptation.

The presentation will start from the kickstart file structure and from the very basic configurations that contains for example the default username, language, etc. Within these configurations there is also partitions configured for the image where the main difference is between the installation images and device specific images. Former one is the images that are used to install the MeeGo on to the device and latter ones are images that are meant for specific device only. Next in the kickstart files are the repository lines to which user would add his own repository that adds the packages needed for his adaptation, which could be compiled e.g. in the community OBS. When all the configurations are done it is time to define the content in either packages or package groups/patterns. MeeGo provides the very basic patterns that should be used as a base to make the image as MeeGo compliant as possible, in addition to these default groups each adaptation can have its own groups and as well as packages defined. In the end of the kickstart file there are usually two more sections that are used in MeeGo images to do some device/image specific configurations that have not been integrated to the packages.

After the kickstart explaination the MIC Image Creator cmdline options are discussed. This contains the difference with different image types such as fs, raw, livecd, liveusb etc. as well as the architectures and their differences; When it is required to use the release option and what does it actually do; How to get the image directory containing the package list, log etc.; How to compress and package the image and much more. Also the difference between run-modes, i.e., bootstrap and legacy is explained.

In addition to the image creation tool MIC package contains also some additional tools including for example, mic-chroot and mic-create-bootstrap. The mic-chroot is a application that is used to chroot inside the image that is created with mic, which is very useful when some minor configurations are wanted before starting the image.