This repository contains scripts used to generate Debian packages for network booting of tills and information screens.
These packages are installed on a server (usually, but not necessarily, the main till).
You must be (real) root when running the image build scripts.
Required packages:
debootstrap squashfs-tools systemd-container qemu-user-static binfmt-support wget parallel debhelper debian-archive-keyring
To build the boot image and loaders package, as root:
./build-all
To build the till-boot-config package:
cd till-boot-config
dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc
You can build the boot image packages on a machine of any architecture (eg. amd64 on arm64 or armhf on i386), but building will be fastest when a boot image is built on a machine with compatible architecture. If you have access to both a PC and a Raspberry you may want to split the work between the two for speed. Edit the build-all script appropriately.
"platform": the type of computer to be booted. Platforms vary in their requirements for boot files and their placement: for example, the 'pc' platform uses ipxe, boot-time config is placed into 'hostname.ipxe' files, and the DHCP server points the client at the appropriate file. The 'rpi' platform uses the PI's own network bootloader; boot-time config and supporting files are placed into a subdirectory named according to the serial number of the PI to be booted.
Current platforms are 'pc' and 'rpi'.
"distribution": the codename of the debian-derived operating system, eg. 'xenial', 'bionic', 'focal' for Ubuntu, 'buster' or 'bullseye' for debian or raspberry pi os
(But see bug list at end.)
- pc bookworm {i386,amd64}
- rpi bookworm {armhf,arm64}
bullseye could be made to work again with additional scripts to choose between wayfire and X
For "legacy" boot: The PXE bootloader in ROM obtains an IP address,
TFTP server address and the boot filename "ipxe.pxe" from the DHCP
server, and loads ipxe.pxe via TFTP. (If the PXE bootloader in ROM
is iPXE, this step is skipped.)
For UEFI boot: The PXE bootloader in ROM obtains an IP address, TFTP
server address and the boot filename "ipxe.efi" from the DHCP server,
and loads ipxe.efi via TFTP.
iPXE performs DHCP again, but this time is given
a HTTP URL as the boot filename, pointing to the .ipxe configuration
file specific to the till being booted.
iPXE loads the {hostname}.ipxe file via HTTP. This file instructs it
to fetch the kernel and initrd via HTTP, and then start the kernel. If
iPXE doesn't have Linux support built-in (for example if it's a small
build of it in ROM on a legacy boot system) it chainloads the
fully-featured ipxe.pxe instead and starts again.
The kernel runs the initrd, which performs DHCP to obtain an IP
address, and NFS mounts the till boot image from the location
specified on the kernel command line in the {hostname}.ipxe
file. The squashfs image is loopback mounted, and an overlayfs is
created to enable ramdisk-backed write to the image. The image is then
started with the overlayfs as the root filesystem.
The boot ROM in the Pi performs DHCP to obtain an IP address and TFTP server address. On Pis prior to Pi 4, it loads "bootcode.bin" via TFTP and then starts again.
The Pi loads a number of files from "{serialnumber}/" via TFTP:
config.txt, start.elf or start4.elf, etc. and ultimately loads a
kernel, initrd, and cmdline.txt.
The kernel runs the initrd, which performs DHCP to obtain an IP
address, and NFS mounts the till boot image from the location
specified on the kernel command line in the cmdline.txt file. The
squashfs image is loopback mounted, and an overlayfs is created to
enable ramdisk-backed write to the image. The image is then started
with the overlayfs as the root filesystem.
wayfire plugin to call seat::cursor::set_touchscreen_mode(true) on init? (There's a "hide_cursor" plugin in wayfire-plugins-extra — maybe compile and package that and include it in the image? See https://github.com/seffs/wayfire-plugins-extra-raspbian )
Fonts look a bit off — the baseline for the proportional font appears to be too high compared to the monospace font. This doesn't happen on bullseye. Entirely possible it's a bug in quicktill, though. Workaround: added a pitch adjustment command line parameter.
Need a way for quicktill to unblank the screen on receiving a usertoken. Some way for it to speak Wayland idle protocol?