Emulator on PC to create "personalised" image to flash on SD to use

[alexchang]

Hello, 

 

I'm pretty new to Armbian world and still trying to learn how everything works. 

 

I have got this Asus Tinker Board R2.0 that I'm trying to use with an Armbian image. 

 

However, before flashing the Armbian image to SD and boot from it, is there any way I could emulate the system on my PC, boot from a fresh Armbian ROM, change my preferred settings and install the applications I want, and then transfer the whole "personalised" ROM to an SD and boot from it on my actual Tinker Board. 

 

If I need to "initialise" the fresh Armbian ROM on the actual Tinker Board, can I then use the SD card (or an img created from it with Win32 Disk Imager or similar) to emulate it from my PC and work on that? 

 

My goal is to create/modify from my PC the image I want to boot from on the actual board, complete with my user, application and all. 

 

If it's not possible for the specific Tinker Board, is something like this generally possible for SBCs? 

 

Any help is really appreciated. 

Thanks! 

[Werner]

No need to emulate anything. Customization can be done while building. Easiest is via customize-image.sh script in userpatches: https://docs.armbian.com/Developer-Guide_User-Configurations/#user-provided-image-customization-script

[alexchang]

Thanks for your help. 

 

I understand I can add my codes while building. 

 

However, would it be possible anyway to emulate the SBC on PC from the running image, even on a later stage? 

 

 

[torz77]

The easiest way to do this is through a chroot (or perhaps systemd-nspawn) but how practical this is will be dependent on your end goals.

 

I do this all the time.

Edited 1 hour ago by torz77