MX Linux Forum

I was wondering, is there a way to install MX on a system for somebody else and make it prompt to create the first user account, or rename it and change its password plus set (or change) the root password, upon first boot? Such as when setting up a computer that you're getting ready to sell, or computers that are sold in stores that have MX pre-loaded on them. I seem to recall that some newly-deployed computers in the past, particularly in enterprise environments, had like a partial installation (of Windows) that prompted the new user to finalize the install by creating his or her account when he first turned it on. I'm just wondering if there's any sort of a similar wizard available for MX that could be set to autostart and prompt the user to set up the user account and root password so only he or she would know what they were, then stop autostarting once this wizard had been completed?

I've seen 'run once' scripts, but no idea how they are made/constructed, maybe search for that term.

P.S. When I set up machines to give away, I use 'user' (passwd user), & 'root' (passwd root), & tell them to change them, else someone can access their private files, usually gets them to change them.

that is what is called an OEM installation & both the Ubuntu & LinuxMint installers do have that option available.
- but, not the MX-Linux installer.

Pierre wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 5:40 am that is what is called an OEM installation & both the Ubuntu & LinuxMint installers do have that option available.
- but, not the MX-Linux installer.

"OEM Installation"! Thank you, that's the term I was trying to think of and couldn't remember.

The more I thought about it the more I was afraid that this would wind up being a feature request for the installer. The proper time to suggest it would have been a month ago when AK-47 was starting to redo the installer for MX 18.3, but alas I only thought of it this morning. Maybe it can be added someday, perhaps in time for MX 18.4.

Could a moderator please move this thread to the appropriate area for such requests? Thanks.

It could be a way to evangelize for MX Linux if people did said OEM installations on second-hand computers they were selling, or a person could earn a bit of extra money buying low-spec, older, slower laptops then OEM-installing MX and reselling them at a slight profit, or a small independent computer shop that builds desktop PCs for sale (do those still exist?) or resells surplus/used PCs could preinstall MX on them rather than selling bare-bones machines with no operating system at all on them, or for deployments in small businesses or in schools, exposing more people to MX.

whilst the idea of an "Partial installation" of MX? is feasible - - it's not something that I've been bothered with,
as I've always known 'who' the refurbished machine is going to go to
& I've already asked them for their preferred UserName & Password - - it's that Root password, that is tricky.
- - some other Linux Systems don't have an dedicated Root Account & that can catch some folks un-aware of this feature.

Pierre wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 6:24 am whilst the idea of an "Partial installation" of MX? is feasible - - it's not something that I've been bothered with,
as I've always known 'who' the refurbished machine is going to go to
& I've already asked them for their preferred UserName & Password - - it's that Root password, that is tricky.
- - some other Linux Systems don't have an dedicated Root Account & that can catch some folks un-aware of this feature.

That may be fine for an individual selling one refurbished computer, but what about a shop, whether brick and mortar or online, that sells many per month? Making the buyer choose their own computer name, domain name, workgroup name, user name and password, and root password after they get their computer home would create a lot less work for the shop's technician, save a lot of back-and-forth dialogue between the tech and the customer while getting it set up, and get the machine out the door a lot faster.

Could a moderator please move this thread to the appropriate area for such requests? Thanks.

This is not a request at the Forum level. The appropriate place would be to click on "BUGS" and make an enhancement request.

Jerry3904 wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 6:51 am

Could a moderator please move this thread to the appropriate area for such requests? Thanks.

This is not a request at the Forum level. The appropriate place would be to click on "BUGS" and make an enhancement request.

OK, will do.

MX Linux is well-poised for sponsorship//affiliation with some manufacturer of linux-oriented hardware, and the feature proposed by JayM would certainly sweeten that prospect.


Ubuntu {--- Dell; Star Labs; Entroware; et al
LinuxMint {--- Compulab; Star Labs;
Debian {--- Purism; ZaReason
Fedora {--- ZaReason
ElementaryOS {--- Juno Computers
PCLinuxOS {--- Chimpbox

The changes we made in the installer will allow us to add a --oem switch very easily (probably a "--oem=sda" or something like that) and install with a set of default settings on a specified drive, the only thing that's a bit more difficult we'd need to add something that runs at first boot to allow user to enter their username and password -- that's also very doable with a init script that would be deleted after completing it successful, so it's all very doable.

Also I have something else in plans, right now the installer save the chosen configs in a /var/log/minstall.conf (take a look at any MX-18.3 install) I would like to add a batch or "auto" install something like
mistall --auto /blah/blah/minstall.conf that would simple run the installer automatically with the settings from that minstall.conf file. Not sure how useful and what particular use case would serve (maybe doing multiple installations in a computer lab) but it's easy to add and it's fun to have some level of automation.

Sounds like that could be quite useful for adding local necessities like internet configs automatically, etc. - & I like the sound of the OEM type setup, which would be useful when setting up an old computer for redistribution.

Re: OEM installation.

This could be tricky with a fresh new user who didn't know what hit them. Be sure to give them an accompanying installation USB or DVD with a little instruction guide to use after they screw up on first boot.

I haven't looked into this too much myself yet so I could be wrong, but it appears that this sort of thing in the installer will be the easy bit. The bit I'm not too sure about is how we can get it to work with the first boot of the installed OS. I'm currently resting a bit and not working on major features until the end of next week though, so I'll look into this more a bit later.

Even if this was requested in time for the April/May installer changes, I would have postponed it. There was a hell of a lot of work done and barely enough time for testing, so having more features to test at a time would have made things more difficult.

Adrian wrote: Tue May 28, 2019 2:50 pm Also I have something else in plans, right now the installer save the chosen configs in a /var/log/minstall.conf (take a look at any MX-18.3 install) I would like to add a batch or "auto" install something like
mistall --auto /blah/blah/minstall.conf that would simple run the installer automatically with the settings from that minstall.conf file. Not sure how useful and what particular use case would serve (maybe doing multiple installations in a computer lab) but it's easy to add and it's fun to have some level of automation.

Multiple unattended, identical installations in a computer lab, classroom, office... The IT tech burns a dozen DVDs the day before rollout then just goes around from machine to machine outside of normal business hours, just booting them from one of those disks and letting it run while she's off booting up a few more, then goes back around removing the disks and shutting the computers down. That would greatly speed up a mass deployment.

OEM installation would serve the use case of setting up one or more individual computers for customers such as when selling them. The two could even be combined into automated bulk OEM installs.

figueroa wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 12:08 am Re: OEM installation.

This could be tricky with a fresh new user who didn't know what hit them. Be sure to give them an accompanying installation USB or DVD with a little instruction guide to use after they screw up on first boot.

I was envisioning something like, the first screen of the installer has some licensing legalese and allows the user to select his keyboard as it currently does. Screen 2 prompts to select the type of installation using radio buttons and text something like:

Normal installation Installs MX Linux to your hard disk, installs the GRUB bootloader, and prompts you to configure your computer and create a user account. This is what most people should select.
OEM installation Installs MX linux to your hard disk, installs GRUB, skips the prompts to set up the computer and create an account. The user will be prompted to do this later after booting into MX. Intended for setting up computers for others.

Normal installation would be selected by default, and when the user clicks next the installation proceeds as it does now.