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Choosing a build environment
First of all you have to set up a ThinStation build environment for boot images. You can choose between either
- a pre-configured, dedicated Linux installation called “DevStation” or
- a standard Linux installation of Fedora. Read on for further instructions.
Watch the video.
Cloning the ThinStation Git repository
Let’s assume you chose the second option from above. Then you need a reasonably modern Linux installation with Git installed.
Start up a shell window and run:
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Thinstation/thinstation-ng.git
This will clone the current stable ThinStation branch into a newly created directory thinstation-ng.
Building a boot image
Enter the chroot building environment as root :
cd thinstation-ng
./setup-chroot
You'll always launch this before creating a new build or iso.
This will take a few minutes the first time it is run. You will end up reading the file README.md. Leave the pager application by pressing q.
Let’s move on with building your first ThinStation boot image (always as root in chroot environment):
cd /build
./build --savedir
This will again take some time (up to a few minutes, depending on your system). Afterwards in the subdirectory boot-images/grub, you will find and ISO, and also the contents of the ISO for copying to removable media. You could now go and boot either of these, but they probably will be of no real use to you, as the default config is very generic. Most people getting into ThinStation usually need a very specific result, so we need to edit the configs to make something tailored to your environment.
What’s next?
After having seen how to build ThinStation boot images, it is time for you to adapt the configuration to your requirements. This involves
- deciding how to deploy ThinStation (how to boot up your thin clients),
- analyzing the target hardware (where your boot image is intended to be run on),
- choosing the applications (or protocols) to be used by the end user and
- for each application defining the parameters (details on how it should operate). See here for further instructions.
From time to time you will want to update your repository.