Recipe: 000-NOOBS Setup

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Recipe Card

 

000 : NOOBS Setup

 

Recipe Files	Ingredients
(flavour)_root.txt	000-noobs-setup_INGREDIENTS.zip

For the markdown version of this recipe on the Pi-Kitchen GitHub site see:

000-NOOBS Setup.md

 

Description

 

This recipe has two functions:

1 – When setting up a Pi-Kitchen SD-Card this recipe includes switchnoobs.bat which will allow a Windows based PC to switch between the NOOBS setups.

2 – When installed on a Raspberry Pi, switchnoobs.sh is added to the pi/bin directory, allowing easy switching of the NOOBS setup from the Raspberry Pi itself.

WARNING: If you have altered the flavours.json file to add your own custom flavours then you must update the files within the _flavours directory:

flavours.json.auto

flavours.json.autodev

flavours.json.normal

RaspbianPiKitchen.png

RaspbianPiKitchenDev.png

Also if you have changed the partitions.json file or added your own content to data.tar.xz you will need to update these files.

partitions.json

data.tar.xz

These will be used to replace the active ones when switching between setups. If you make any changes to these files in the distribution folder, ensure you update these ones too.

Easy Pi-Kitchen setup

This recipe also provides a quick way to setup the additional flavours (as described in the Pi-Kitchen Guide: Creating Flavours).

It performs the following actions (when a GUI / Normal installation is selected):

• Sets recovery.cmdline to run the GUI / Normal (run shift is pressed during startup).
• Replaces the pre-configured flavours.json file into the os/Raspbian folder with one which has the additional RaspbianPiKitchen and RaspbianPiKitchenDev flavours.
• Copies over the custom icons (if not already present).

• Enables the data partition as part of the installation (replacing partitions.json and adding data.tar.xz (if not already present)).

NOTE: This does not install noobsconfig, the NOOBS system or any recipe files.

To complete the Multi-flavour setup as described in Pi-Kitchen Guide: Quick Start) you will need to:

1. Extract noobsconfig
2. Add your own boot/root/data recipe files.

Automatic Installations

As explained in the Pi-Kitchen Guide: Automatic Installations there are a number of steps required in order to allow NOOBS to perform an automated (also known as headless – since a display isn’t required).

• Sets recovery.cmdline to run silent NOOBS install (no user interaction is required).
• Replaces the pre-configured flavours.json file with the selected flavour.
• Disables the other distributions by renaming the os.json files.
• Enables the data partition as part of the installation (replacing partitions.json and adding data.tar.xz (if not already present)).

The switchnoobs scripts will perform these actions for you (assuming you have the correct files in the _flavours directory).

GUI Installations

As mentioned above, by selecting GUI or Normal, the script will set NOOBS to display all the installed distributions and allow manual selection before installation.

Video Modes

The configurations supplied allow selection of the video mode used by NOOBS when running the installation.

NOTE: NOOBS 1.3.10 has a bug which means it ignores the video option, so selecting a different video mode using this recipe will not make any difference (it will always use HDMI). So you will need a keyboard to change the video output manually if using anything other than a HDMI screen. Later versions of NOOBS should have this bug fixed.

Adding Additional Flavours/Distros

The switchnoobs scripts can easily be extended to allow selection of other distributions or flavours by using a similar format. You could even create a version which doesn’t include the data partition (if desired).

NOTE: There is an open GitHub request on NOOBS which will allow the desired flavour/distribution to be to selected (and automatically installed) directly from the recovery.cmdline. If this implemented, then this will dramatically simplify this recipe.

How to use

 

Change the NOOBS setup by running sudo ./bin/switchnoobs.sh

 

Ingredients

The ingredient files should be placed in the following location on the NOOBS RECOVERY partition:

 

pi-kitchen/000-noobs-setup

 

This recipe uses the following files:

 

switchnoobs.sh

autorecovery.cmdline

installrecovery.cmdline

install-sdtvrecovery.cmdline

auto-sdtvrecovery.cmdline

normalrecovery.cmdline

_flavoursflavours.json.normal

_flavoursflavours.json.auto

_flavoursflavours.json.autodev

_flavoursRaspbianPiKitchenDev.png

_flavoursRaspbianPiKitchen.png

 

You can download all the ingredient files, and extracted directly to the NOOBS SD-Card (ensuring you remove the ZIP file’s name from the directory – the files should be extracted to pi-kitchen/000-noobs-setup).

The Recipe Files

Each recipe will use one file for each of the partitions it installs to – boot, root and data).

You will need to suitably rename or copy the content of each of the following files into your recipe files (i.e. RaspbianPiKitchen_root.txt) and place them in your os folder in the NOOBS partition (i.e. os/Raspbian).

For more information see the Pi-Kitchen: Creating Flavours guide.

(flavour)_root.txt

#

#Recipe: 000-noobs-setup

#Add switchnoobs files:

#- switchnoobs.sh should be set as executable

../../pi-kitchen/000-noobs-setup/switchnoobs.sh /home/pi/bin +x

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Enjoy baking your Raspberry Pi SD-Card fresh from the Pi-Kitchen.