[X2Go-User] Install x2go TCE-live server

[Stefan Baur]

Am 13.01.19 um 22:15 schrieb Stroganov Roman:
>  I have several thin clients who 512 MB have RAM. At the others 1 GB and
> more. If I correctly understood x2go tce-live it is loading of FAT clients?

I don't know what you mean by this.  The main difference between
TCE-Classic and TCE-Live is that the image gets loaded into the RAM of
the ThinClient.  You still get the same, full-screen X2Go login screen
afterwards.  The image itself is currently ~ 260 MB.  So even on a 512
MB machine you should have enough free RAM to run X2GoClient and
establish a connection.


> Their start pudt long? I plan about 15-20 clients only in local network.

This depends on your network speed.  With a 1GBit/s switched network,
and loading the image via http, it takes about 1m40s from cold boot to
login screen.
Ways to optimize that are using local storage on the thin client
(internal flash or USB media), or manually stripping down the image from
260 MB to something smaller.  188 MB should be easy to achieve,
something around 166 MB will take more effort.


> The network is very stable. Use of nfs is quite possible.
> I would like to try x2go tce-live but there are some difficulties.
> I am not a really experienced user of Linux. Therefore I need the detailed
> instruction. https://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/doc:howto:tce it is badly clear
> to me that to do. The stage "Building your own X2Go-TCE Image" What there
> to do? It is a script?

Yes, it is a script. Three scripts, to be exact.
The first one configures the build, the second one is a patch you need
to prepare, the third is the actual build script.

I would suggest using a Debian Jessie system as the build host if you
want to try this yourself.  It might work with a Debian Stretch build
host, but I haven't tested that.  Whatever you do, stay away from
Ubuntu.  They ship a live-build version that is horribly out of date.

On that Debian system, run:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install genisoimage git-core live-build live-config-doc
live-manual-html live-boot-doc

Create a directory in which you want to work on the build, and change
into it:

mkdir builddir
cd builddir

Save the first
(<https://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/doc:howto:tce#configuring_the_build>)
of the three scripts from the Wiki into a file "x2goconfig".

Change the line that starts with

export LBX2GO_CONFIG

to point at this address:

'https://github.com/LinuxHaus/live-build-x2go::feature/openbox-magic-pixel-workaround-stretch'

If your thin clients are still 32-bit CPUs, change

export LBX2GO_ARCH='-a amd64 -k amd64'

to

export LBX2GO_ARCH='-a i386 -k 686-pae'

Save the second
(<https://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/doc:howto:tce#live-patching_the_build>)
of the three scripts as "x2gousbpatch".

Save the third
(<https://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/doc:howto:tce#starting_the_build>) of
the three scripts as "x2gobuild".

Make all three scripts executable:
chmod 755 x2go*

Open a root shell with

sudo -i

Then type:
./x2goconfig && ./x2gousbpatch && ./x2gobuild 2>&1 | tee logfile

This will take a while to build.
If something breaks, you will see a message containing the line "Build
failed.", else one stating "Build is done".
Feel free to provide us with the file "logfile" if you have the
impression that something went wrong.

Assuming a successful build, you will end up with a directory named
"live-build-x2go-YYYYMMDDHHMMSS-netboot-amd64-openbox-magic-pixel-workaround-stretch"
(where YYYYMMDDHHMMSS is the build date).

>From this directory, you will need the files:

x2go-tce-filesystem.squashfs ...(this goes on your http server)
x2go-tce-initrd.img ............(this goes on your boot server)
x2go-tce-vmlinuz ...............(this goes on your boot server)

<https://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/doc:howto:tce#netbooting> explains how
to set up your boot and http servers.  Feel free to ask on the list
again if you have trouble understanding these steps.

Kind Regards,
Stefan Baur

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