Starting point

This is a constantly updating template repository for creating a native container image designed to be customized however you want. GitHub will build your image for you, and then host it for you on ghcr.io. You then just tell your computer to boot off of that image. GitHub keeps 90 days worth image backups for you, thanks Microsoft!

For more info, check out the uBlue homepage and the main uBlue repo

Getting started

See the Make Your Own -page in the documentation for quick setup instructions for setting up your own repository based on this template.

Don't worry, it only requires some basic knowledge about using the terminal and git.

Note

Everywhere in this repository, make sure to replace ublue-os/startingpoint with the details of your own repository. Unless you used create-ublue-image, in which case the previous repo identifier should already be your repo's details.

Customization

The easiest way to start customizing is by looking at and modifying recipe.yml. It's documented using comments and should be pretty easy to understand.

For the base-image field, you can use any other native container image. You will get all the features of that image, plus the ones added here! Check out the uBlue images list to decide what to use!

If you want to add custom configuration files, you can just add them in the etc directory. If you need to add other directories, you can look at the Containerfile to see how it's done. Writing to any directories under /var in Fedora Silverblue are not supported and will not work, as those are user-managed.

Note

The configuration files you put in the etc directory are actually added to /usr/etc/ where they get applied to your local /etc/ when rebasing to or updating the image. If a config file in /etc/ has been changed, the changes won't be overridden, but the new version will be available in /usr/etc/. Run sudo ostree admin config-diff to see the difference between /etc/ and /usr/etc/ (man ostree-admin-config-diff for further documentation).

Custom build scripts

If you want to execute custom shell scripts or commands in the image build, you shouldn't edit build.sh or the Containerfile directly.

Instead, you can create shell scripts in the scripts/ directory (look at the example.sh). After creating your scripts, enable them in the scripts: section of your recipe.yml, within the specific "build stage" category where the scripts are intended to be executed.

Read the README in the scripts/ directory for more information.

Custom package repositories

If you want to add custom package repositories to your image, you can include them in the recipe.yml as a list of URLs under the rpm.repos: section. They must be proper .repo files (such as https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/atim/starship/repo/fedora-38/atim-starship-fedora-38.repo). In the build process, the .repo file will be downloaded and placed inside /etc/yum.repos.d/ where rpm-ostree can access it.

You can use this to add COPR repositories to your image. COPR is like the Arch User Repository for Fedora, where you can find extra packages that wouldn't otherwise be available. The repositories are community-created, so use them at your own risk. Read more

Tip: You can use the magic string %FEDORA_VERSION% in your repo URLs, to automatically refer to the correct repository for your current Fedora version.

Building multiple images

You can build multiple images using multiple recipe.yml files. They will share the Containerfile and everything else, but things like packages declared in the recipe will be different between the images. For a more robust multibuild setup, you could consider forking from the ublue-os/main repo, which was built from the purpose.

In order to build multiple recipes, you need to declare each one below line ~33 in build.yml. The files should be in the root of the repository.

Example: Adding a new recipe called recipe-2.yml (snippets from the matrix section of build.yml)

Before:

matrix:
  recipe:
    - recipe.yml

After:

matrix:
  recipe:
    - recipe.yml
    - recipe-2.yml

yafti

yafti is the uBlue "first boot" installer. It shows up the first time a user logs into uBlue. By default, the menu also shows up again anytime the image's yafti configuration differs from the user's last encounter, so feel free to expand or modify your custom image's yafti configuration over time. Your users will then see the yafti menu again after the OS update, and will be given a chance to install any new additions.

Its configuration can be found in /usr/share/ublue-os/firstboot/yafti.yml of the installed OS. It includes an optional selection of Flatpaks to install, along with a new group that's automatically added for all Flatpaks declared in recipe.yml. You can look at what's done in the config and modify it to your liking (in the repository, before building the image, since the installed system file is immutable).

The files /usr/etc/profile.d/ublue-firstboot.sh and /usr/etc/skel.d/.config/autostart/ublue-firstboot.desktop set up yafti so that it starts on boot, which means that you shouldn't touch those files if you wish to retain that functionality.

Installation

Warning

This is an experimental feature and should not be used in production, try it in a VM for a while!

To rebase an existing Silverblue/Kinoite installation to the latest build:

sudo rpm-ostree rebase ostree-unverified-registry:ghcr.io/ublue-os/startingpoint:latest

This repository builds date tags as well, so if you want to rebase to a particular day's build:

sudo rpm-ostree rebase ostree-unverified-registry:ghcr.io/ublue-os/startingpoint:20230403

The latest tag will automatically point to the latest build. That build will still always use the Fedora version specified in recipe.yml, so you won't get accidentally updated to the next major version.

Just

The just task runner is included in main for further customization after first boot.

You can copy the justfile from /usr/share/ublue-os/just/justfile to ~/.justfile to get started. When just supports include directives, you will instead be able to simply include that path into your own justfile, without having to copy it manually.

After doing that, you'll be able to run the following commands:

• just - Show all tasks, more will be added in the future
• just bios - Reboot into the system bios (Useful for dualbooting)
• just changelogs - Show the changelogs of the pending update
• Set up distroboxes for the following images:
  • just distrobox-boxkit
  • just distrobox-debian
  • just distrobox-opensuse
  • just distrobox-ubuntu
• just setup-flatpaks - Install all of the flatpaks declared in recipe.yml
• just setup-gaming - Install Steam, Heroic Game Launcher, OBS Studio, Discord, Boatswain, Bottles, and ProtonUp-Qt. MangoHud is installed and enabled by default, hit right Shift-F12 to toggle
• just nix-me-up - Install Nix with dnkmmr69420's Nix Silverblue install script
• just update - Update rpm-ostree, flatpaks, and distroboxes in one command

Check the just website for tips on modifying and adding your own recipes.

Verification

These images are signed with sisgstore's cosign. You can verify the signature by downloading the cosign.pub key from this repo and running the following command:

cosign verify --key cosign.pub ghcr.io/ublue-os/startingpoint

If you're forking this repo, the uBlue website has instructions for setting up signing properly.