This application is run from a live USB to write an Endless OS disk image to a fixed disk. It is branded as “Reformat with Endless OS” or “Reformat” to avoid confusion with the Endless Installer for Windows.
It is derived from gnome-initial-setup, the first boot experience for GNOME
(and Endless OS). The majority of the g-i-s code is not used.
There are two supported modes of operation:
- a combined live + installer USB, written using
eos-write-live-imagefromeos-meta. This is a disk with an entire Endless OS image stored in a file on aneosliveexFAT partition. The OS is booted from that image; running this app from inside the image writes the image itself to a fixed disk. This is not very easy to replicate during development because changing theeos-installerexecutable invalidates the GPG signature for the image! - a "standalone" USB, which boots directly into this app, written using
eos-write-installer. This has a normal ext4 partition holding this app, and a separateeosimagespartition holding images to install. This mode is less useful to end users – you can't try the OS you're about to install – but it is an easier setup to replicate during development.
One way to run this application while developing it is to use a virtual machine with the following setup:
- Disk 1: an Endless OS installation. Build and run the app from here.
- Disk 2: a GPT-formatted drive with an
eosimagespartition. The partition should be exFAT-formatted, and should contain an Endless OS.img.xzand corresponding.img.xz.ascin the root directory. You can create such a drive usingeos-write-installer. - Disk 3: an install target. This is the drive you'll write the Endless OS image to.
If you do not have an eosimages partition with at least one image file on it,
running the app will take you straight to the error screen.