Preview: command-line installer

mardy

Hi there!
In the last few days I've been working on a command-line installer for Ubuntu Touch. The goal is not to replace the current graphical installer, but to have a piece of software written in a language (shell scripting) that is familiar to more developers, and that hopefully would be easier to modify.

I've tried to write it in such a way that it should not be hard to embed it into a graphical application; it's not fully ready for that yet, but if someone familiar with the graphical installer source code wants to try embedding the command-line installer, I can support him

At the moment, this is in very early stages:

it supports only the BQ devices cooler, frieza, krilling and vegetahd
localization (translations) support needs to be implemented
need to find a way to package it (I'll most likely create a snap myself, but all contributions for other packaging formats will be welcome)
need to write a README file explaining how to write device config files

I would appreciate if interested people would try it and report back, but for the time being this is for advanced users only. You need to clone the repository and execute the flasher script from there:

$ ./flasher -h
Usage: flasher [options] [command]

If no command is given, the 'flash' command will be executed by default.

Options:
 -b, --bootstrap          Also flash the vendor firmware (this option is needed
                          if the device is currently running a different OS)
 -c, --channel <channel>  Uses the given channel (default is 'stable')
 -d, --device <dev-id>    Specifies the connected device (default: autodetect)
 -h, --help               Show this help screen
 -q, --quiet              Reduce verbosity level
 -v, --verbose            Increase verbosity level
     --wipe               Erase all user data on the device

If you don't own a BQ device but would still like to try it, the existing files under the device_configs/ directory could serve you as an example; the fact that these files are bash scripts, make it possible for the device maintainer to execute almost any type of operation in there (and it is possible to override the default actions). If you manage to write a working config file for your device, please make sure to submit it with a merge request!

mardy

Update: I've created a PPA with the installer:
https://launchpad.net/~mardy/+archive/ubuntu/ubports-tools

Now I'll slowly add more devices