Thinstation & Colinux
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ThinStation & coLinux The way for building ThinStation images on Windows By Ludo Klein Holte revision: 02-11-2006 Table of Contents 1Introduction........................................................................................................................................ 3 2Getting it working...............................................................................................................................3 2.1Download coLinux..................................................................................................................... 3 2.2Installing coLinux.......................................................................................................................3 2.2.1Extract Debian rootfs.......................................................................................................... 5 2.2.2Configure coLinux.............................................................................................................. 5 2.2.3Configure Windows............................................................................................................ 6 2.2.4Create shortcut.................................................................................................................... 6 2.3Starting coLinux......................................................................................................................... 6 2.3.1Configure DNS................................................................................................................... 6 2.3.2Download needed packages................................................................................................ 6 2.3.3Download Windows SSHclient.......................................................................................... 6 3Building you're own image.................................................................................................................7 3.1Download ThinStation................................................................................................................7 3.2Extract ThinStation.....................................................................................................................7 3.3Edit build.conf............................................................................................................................ 7 3.4Edit thinstation.conf.buildtime................................................................................................... 7 3.5Edit bootsplash config................................................................................................................ 7 3.6Change bootsplash picture..........................................................................................................7 3.7Building the image......................................................................................................................8 3.8Download the image................................................................................................................... 8 4Last word............................................................................................................................................ 8 1 Introduction I've was wondering how good ThinStation would work. It's a hobby of mine to test some stuff for fun. I build a nice iso online, but had some trouble with it. One trouble shooting item was the bootsplash screen. The online compiler only said syntax error to me. So i thought if i build it my own the error would disappear. I used my FreeBSD server, but the build script failed on this. I didn't like to install a new pc with Linux certainly not for this. I looked on the website which said that Cygwin is not working. Then i saw coLinux and i tried it with succes. Because the setup is not obvious i wrote this peace of paper so you can reproduce it if you like. 2 Getting it working 2.1 Download coLinux On the SF.net website of coLinux you can download a coLinux installer for Windows. Go to http://sourceforge.net/projects/colinux/ and download the .exe installer of a stable version of coLinux. 2.2 Installing coLinux Start the executable coLinux<version>.exe file you've downloaded in the previous step. The installer wil start with the welcome screen as it is shown in the textbox, press Next to continue. The next screen will present you the license under which coLinux is released. Read the license and if you agree press the I Agree button. The next screen will show you the components which you can install. All components are needed accept WinPcap but if you like it for further development you can include it also, thus press the Next button. The next screen let you choose you're install directory. Choose c:\coLinux as you're destination folder and press the Next button. The next screen lets you choose you're filesystem. Select Debian as distribution and set you're nearest download location. Then press the Install button. During the installation you can get a hardware installation message. Press the continue button. When the copying of the files is finished you get the next screen. Un check the README checkbox and click the Finish button. Congrats you're coLinux installation is done up to the rest. 2.2.1 Extract Debian rootfs During the installation of coLinux you've selected Debian as you're rootfs. The installation downloaded this file for you to the c:\coLinux directory. Now we gonna extract this bz2 file. Make sure that you have enough space because the 21Mb file will expand to 1Gb. Because a Windows system can't extract this file extension you need a extractor which you can download from . Store this file in c:\coLinux. Now start a command prompt: Start->Execute->cmd and go to c:\coLinux: cd coLinux. Now you can extract (which can take a couple of seconds) the rootfs file by typing: bzip2-100-x86-win32 -d Debian-3.0r2.ext3-mit-backports.1gb.bz2 Please take some attention of the Debian image version. If the name of the Debian rootfs file in you're c:\coLinux is different, change it in the command. 2.2.2 Configure coLinux Browse with you're Windows explorer to c:\coLinux, the place where you've installed it. This directory contains several files. If it is well the file c:\coLinux\defaule.colinux.xml is one of them. Take you're favorite editor and edit the file so it looks like this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <colinux> <block_device index="0" path="\DosDevices\c:\coLinux\Debian-3.0r2.ext3-mit-backports.1gb" enabled="true" /> <bootparams>root=/dev/cobd0</bootparams> <initrd path="initrd.gz" /> <image path="vmlinux" /> <memory size="64" /> <network index="0" type="tap" /> </colinux> Please take some attention of the Debian image version. If the name of the Debian rootfs file in you're c:\coLinux is different, change it in you're c:\coLinux\defaule.colinux.xml file also. 2.2.3 Configure Windows There is need to do some configuration on Windows networking so you have an Internet connection in coLinux. Under Start -> Control panel -> Network connections you will find the network connections of you're computer. There will be a LAN-connection with TAP-Win32 as device. This is the virtual device for coLinux. To give this connection some Internet, double click you're Internet network connection press the Properties button. Go to the Advance tab and check the checkbox “Share Internet with other connections”. Press the Ok button. Press the Close button. Done. 2.2.4 Create shortcut It's time to create a shortcut for starting coLinux on you're desktop. Browse with you're Windows explorer to c:\coLinuxright click on the file colinux-daemon.exe and select “Create shortcut”. The short cut will be made in the same directory. Rename the shortcut (select and press F2) to StartCoLinux or something. Now you must add extra parameters in the shortcut thus right click the shortcut and select “'Properties” in the tab Shortcut change the source into"c:\coLinux\colinux- daemon.exe" -c default.colinux.xml and press the Ok button. Done. 2.3 Starting coLinux Now you can start coLinux by double click the “StartCoLinux” shortcut, the one you've created in the previous step. Two boxes will appear: A dos box which started coLinux and the Cooperative Linux Console, the one we need. Login with as root with the password root. The password can be different like coLinux of blank it holds course with the Debian rootfs image. 2.3.1 Configure DNS Because you don't make use of DHCP a DNS-server don't get assigned automaticly. Before you have Internet you must add the DNS-server of you're ISP. For this example we use 123.123.123.123 as you're ISP DNS-server. You can set the DNS-server by: echo nameserver 123.123.123.123 > /etc/resolv.conf Now test you're connection by pinging www.google.com or ping something else. If it doesn't response look the previous steps if you didn't make a mistake. 2.3.2 Download needed packages Before you can upload download and build you're thinstation iso you must install extra packages. This will be done with apt-get. The way to install these is: apt-get install file apt-get install nano apt-get install ssh During the install of ssh you can be asked if you want to install sshd server, please anwser yes!! 2.3.3 Download Windows SSHclient On the ftp server ftp://ftp.ssh.com/pub/ssh you can download SSHSecureShellClient-<version>.exe This client is used to connect you're desktop to coLinux. Download it, install it and start it. Now you can do a quick connect. Fill in the ip address of coLinux. You can obtain these by typing the command “ifconfig”in the coLinux console. The inet addr of