OOWOW Online-installation images

Basic Requirements

System must workable for any board revision
Image writing size small as possible, no need to rewrite the whole eMMC content, same as writing unused empty spaces
Image writing size not be bigger what's possible smallest storage board configurations
Any private data not allowed
Any malware spyware etc … will be banned
Clean trash, logs, cache, etc … before packing installation image
Use optimal compression via xze
Use meta descriptions for images via xze
Use Basic Khadas file-name format for installation images
…

Image Size

Try to make the installation image size small as possible

The simple dump from EMMC is the wrong way. Yes we can do it but, this image will have negative parts like:

some garbage in unused space
same fill EMMC size which will be written as is
…

It's possible to improve by dump-optimization, but don't have any warranty to get quality results

Partitions

Fenix Builds

for Fenix builds need to use normal partitions (like GPT or DOS ) please don’t use Amlogic partitions variant (just if its really necessary)

...
Choose install type:
2. SD-USB - Image For Writing to SD/USB Storage
...
Compress image:
Yes

Compress image option, automatically build image suitable for OOWOW

Dump optimization

Prepare all content on eMMC (clean cached, temp, logs, files manually by hand)
Boot into OOWOW
Before make dump from eMMC need make some optimization via OOWOW ⇒ shell RESIZE=1 mmc_optimize
Make an eMMC dump to SD/USB it will be automatically decreased as possible
Repack it by xze, if need to use it for online installation

Be sure your system must resize root-fs back to maximal size automatically at 1st boot, for example resize2fs /dev/rootfs

Basic Khadas file-name format

…

SYNTAX:  boardname-system[-info]+.img[.xz|gz|zst]

All in lowercase only, use '-' as splitter, no spaces, no Unicode only basic Latin … chars, file-name size less 80 symbols.

Examples: https://dl.khadas.com/.images/vim4/

XZE

We recommend using xze features for image developers, to provide better service for users like as:

Provide additional meta information about images
Its fully compatible with the common xz format, and same possible to use anywhere
Fast-checking image integrity before writing it
Make a warranty it will be suitable for the current board installation
Fast optimal compression for fastest decompression on SBC
Image signup
etc…

XZE usage examples

The packing process is very simple just need to add some additional meta information …

pack raw image

xze "vim1s-ha-supervised-debian-11-minimal-linux-5.4-fenix-1.5.1-230623.img" \
 --meta \
 label="Home Assistant" \
 builder="Repack" \
 date="$(LANG=C TZ= date)" \
 match=BOARD=VIM1S \
 link=https://www.home-assistant.io/ \
 duration=180 \
 desc="Home Assistant / debian 11 / linux 5.4 / fenix 1.5.1 / 230623"

Also, we can get full information about xze-packed image

check image meta info

./xze YOUR-IMAGE.img.xz

Just one more example

~$ ./xze edge2-openfyde-r114.img.xz 
Strms  Blocks   Compressed Uncompressed  Ratio  Check   Filename
    2     110  1,456.4 MiB  9,786.1 MiB  0.149  CRC64   edge2-openfyde-r114.img.xz
[i] blocks: 110 // 1,456.4*MiB // 9,786.1*MiB
##META_FILE##
FILE: edge2-openfyde-r114.img.xz
UNPACKED_SIZE: 10261445120
PACKED_SIZE: 1527136256
FILE_SIZE: 1527140352
##META-FILE##
 
##KRESCUE_META##
type:xz
label: openFyde
date: Sat Jul 15 04:18:38 UTC 2023
match: BOARD=Edge2
builder: openFyde
link: https://openfyde.io/
desc: openFyde for Khadas Edge2
duration: 60
image: edge2-openfyde-r114.img
##KRESCUE-META##
##KRESCUE##END

Last one is web usage

get meta info

~$ IMAGE_LINK=https://github.com/openFyde/overlay-edge2-openfyde/releases/download/r114/edge2-openfyde-r114.img.xz
 
~$ curl -s -jkLf -r-4096 "$IMAGE_LINK" | xz -dc 
 
##META_FILE##
FILE: edge2-openfyde-r114.img.xz
UNPACKED_SIZE: 10261445120
PACKED_SIZE: 1527136256
FILE_SIZE: 1527140352
##META-FILE##
 
##KRESCUE_META##
type:xz
label: openFyde
date: Sat Jul 15 04:18:38 UTC 2023
match: BOARD=Edge2
builder: openFyde
link: https://dl.khadas.com/
desc: openFyde for Khadas Edge2
duration: 60
image: edge2-openfyde-r114.img
##KRESCUE-META##
##KRESCUE##END

Armbian external mirrors usage

Armbian Images for Khadas SBCs

link setup

@web:/storage/.images/edge2$ grep "" edge2-armbian*
edge2-armbian-jammy-legacy-cli.img.xz:https://redirect.armbian.com/khadas-edge2/Jammy_legacy.oowow
edge2-armbian-jammy-legacy-desktop-xfce.img.xz:https://redirect.armbian.com/khadas-edge2/Jammy_legacy_xfce.oowow
edge2-armbian-jammy-legacy-minimal.img.xz:https://redirect.armbian.com/khadas-edge2/Jammy_legacy_minimal.oowow
 
@web:/storage/.images/edge2$ chmod 0667 edge2-armbian*

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