Image customizations at build time

[Irene]

I am building a legacy desktop image for Rock64 and there are a few things I am trying to customize at build time.  I modified userpatches/customize-image.sh, but I am not getting expected results.  Here are some things I am trying to modify:

 

1. I want to have the desktop come up in solid black color, no image.  I made the following changes to userpatches/customize-image.sh:

 

    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options 'none'
    gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background primary-color '#000000'
 

But I am still seeing the Armbian image on my desktop.  What else do I have to modify?

 

2. I need to get rid of the prompt that asks for the root user password.  I added the following lines to userpatches/customize-image.sh:

 

rm -f /root/.not_logged_in_yet
echo -e "password\npassword" | (passwd root)

 

This got rid of the root password prompt, but now the image doesn't boot into the desktop GUI.  It stops at the Linux CLI prompt.  What else do I need to modify in customize-image.sh to make it boot into GUI?

 

3.  I need to create another user and I'd like to have my box automatically boot as this user.  I added the following lines to userpatches/customize-image.sh (in addition to stuff I added in #2 above):

 

    echo -e "$PW\n$PW\n\n" | (adduser new_user)
 

What else do I have to modify to make the box boot as this user?

 

4. I would like to get rid of Locale prompt and always choose en_US.UTF-8.  How would I do that?

 

5. I am trying to add a systemd startup script at build time.  I added the following lines to userpatches/customize-image.sh:

 

cp /tmp/overlay/*.service /lib/systemd/system
systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable myservice.service

 

I have myservice.service in userpatches/overlay directory.  But, the service doesn't start on my target.  

 

Thank you in advance for any help I can get!  Incidentally, it seems like I can only post to this forum once in a 24 hour period.  How can I get past this restriction?  My answers may be delayed due to this.

[Igor]

1 hour ago, Irene said:

How can I get past this restriction?

 

- buying a forum subscription to help cover the electricity bill

- adding a valuable forum content to receive a "like"

- waiting one week

 

1 hour ago, Irene said:

My answers may be delayed due to this.

 

This restriction is here for newcomers to calm down a bit and understand that it is on them to wait. Not regulars who will perhaps read, understand what you are asking and help you.

[Irene]

I got some of my build time customizations working by adding some commands to customize-image.sh.  The 2 I haven't figured out yet are the ones below.  If anyone has any suggestions, they would be greatly appreciated.  I am building a legacy focal desktop image for Rock 64.  

 

1. I need the image to come up with a black screen background and no background image displayed.  The latest thing I tried calling the following in customize-image.sh, but it still didn't work:

 

    DISPLAY=":0" gsettings set org.gtk.Settings.ColorChooser custom-colors "[(0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 1.0)]"
    DISPLAY=":0" gsettings set org.gtk.Settings.ColorChooser selected-color "(true, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0)"
 

2. I don't want the top menu bar to be visible.  I just want my app's window to be displayed and nothing else.  How do I accomplish that at build time?

[belfastraven]

Given the gsettings you are running,  I assume you are using a GNOME desktop?    

if so  can you try,

 

 

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background picture-options 'none'

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background primary-color '#000000' 

 

Assuming that since you know the  user and you are using autologin  ( as that won't change the background for the display manager)  that will set a black background.

 

If this is e.g. an xfce, lxde , etc.  desktop,  that will not work.  

 

there are other gsettings keys that you can set to eliminate desktop icons, etc.  Your best bet would be to google gsettings 

[Irene]

Thank you. After more digging, I realized that the build has xfce desktop.  This is a legacy focal build for ROCK64.  Is there a way to specify which desktop to use during Armbian build?

[Igor]

47 minutes ago, Irene said:

Is there a way to specify which desktop to use during

Under development - welcome to contribute to:
 

 

[belfastraven]

Are you trying to build a kind of "kiosk" application?   XFCE is a much less resource intensive desktop than gnome and it actually has a kiosk mode--  you also have the capability of controlling the color of the desktop and what appears on a panel:  see here: https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfconf/start.  

 

I am excited about the project that @Igor has mentioned;  for now,  I tend to build a "server" version of software and then install a desktop on the running system.  I imagine that would not work for you even if you used clonezilla or a like program to copy the configured image,  since you may need different network parameters for each installation... but I thought I would mention it.

 

 

[Irene]

Thank you Igor and belfastraven!  I will definitely look into the kiosk mode of XFCE, since that looks like what I am trying to do.