Customizing your target

Submitted by Bob Spencer, updated on 21 May 2009 - 1 comment
Moblin Image Creator

The Target file system is what gets put in an image and installed on a mobile device (or run in KVM). You can customize your target, add applications, development tools, media, or anything else, before creating an image.

Overview

Steps to create an image for your device.

  1. Install and run Image Creator.
  2. Create a project and target for your platform.
  3. (Optional) Add applications or customize the target file system.
  4. Create an image of the target.
  5. Boot the image on your netbook or MID.

Customizing your target file system on the workstation

Before creating an image, you may want to update or configure your target. You can do this easily on the workstation, by chrooting into the target file-system:

  1. Select a project in the Platform Projects section.
  2. Select a target in the Targets section.
  3. Select the Terminal button in the Targets section (a new terminal is started, chrooted into the target file-system).
  4. Modify the target system as desired. Add packages (Ubuntu: apt-get install <pkg>; Fedora: yum install <pkg>), add media content, or change configuration settings.

When you click on the "Terminal" button, Image Creator creates a new terminal and changes the root of that terminal to the root of the target file system. When working in this terminal, the file system will appears just as it will when booted on the mobile device.

Copying media from the workstation to the target

The location of the target file system on your workstation is:
     <directory of parent Project>/targets/<Target name>/fs/
You will need to know this location, if you want to copy content from your workstation to the target file system.

Tracking lots of terminals

An easy way to keep track of which terminal belongs to the workstation, project, or target, is to add the following lines to the /root/.bashrc files in the project and targets:

In project terminal (a terminal launched from the "Terminal" button in the Projects area of Image Creator), edit the /root/.bashrc file and add the following:

BLUE='\[\033[01;34m\]'
GREEN='\[\033[01;32m\]'
BLACK='\[\033[00m\]'
YELLOW='\[\033[01;33m\]'
RED='\[\033[01;31m\]'
PS1=$BLACK'['$BLUE'\u@Project '$BLUE'\W'$BLACK']\$ '
export PS1

In target terminal (a terminal launched with the "Terminal" button in the Targets area of Image Creator), edit the /root/.bashrc file and add the following:

BLUE='\[\033[01;34m\]'
GREEN='\[\033[01;32m\]'
BLACK='\[\033[00m\]'
YELLOW='\[\033[01;33m\]'
RED='\[\033[01;31m\]'
PS1=$BLACK'['$RED'\u@Target '$BLUE'\W'$BLACK']\$ '
export PS1

These useful aliases added to any Ubuntu .bashrc file can save some typing:

alias ll='ls -al --color'
alias ai='apt-get install'
alias as='apt-cache search'
alias ap='apt-cache policy'

Comments (1 total)

there is no basic binary tools to use in Project

Submitted by unailbobo on 12 October 2008 - 7:05pm.

Following the instructions, I installed MIC and created Project/Target. However, when I start up a Project terminal, the following msg came to me:

su: warning: cannot change directory to /root: No such file or directory
-bash: /bin/hostname: No such file or directory
-bash-3.2#

any wrong steps I made???

also, I found there is no basic binary file such as vim in Project terminal.