Customizing Ubuntu-Mate on used Laptop that will be for sale

Support & Help Requests
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#1

I’ve lucked out on a several (four with possibility of more) older laptops I saved from being recycled (read junked for the teeny tiny bit of gold in the boards) and am trying to put them back to work. They seem to like Ubuntu-Mate quite well and I am already setting up the main unit to be customized and then imaged to push that same image on all four of them. I already know about using /etc/skel to pass along user folder customizations, what I want to know about is slightly different.

Since I don’t want to have to do too much once I finish setting the hardware up and pushing the image, what I want to know is if there is a way to trigger something to ask for a new user account to be created upon first boot, that way the new owner can create their account, inherit the settings I made for them and have their laptop working from that point on with their account instead of the dummy account I used to set things up.

Is there a way to do this? Something that deletes the current user accounts and upon reboot triggers the account creation? Thanks!

#2

Sounds like you would want to do a OEM install. Please see the second reply to the following link.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/36671/how-do-i-pre-install-ubuntu-for-someone-oem-install

I believe you should be able to install, customize, shut down, and make the image you wish to push to the other PC’s.

2 Likes
#3

This looks like it’s exactly what I am looking for. I completely misunderstood what this option did when I’ve seen it in the past. Unfortunately this means the progress I currently have so far will be lost but that’s minor considering how professional this will look when I take this option. I’ll have to give it a shot and let you know how it works afterwards. Thanks!

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#4

Please do so. I’m interested to know also.

You could try it in a virtual machine first to be sure it will do everything you require.

Good Luck with your project :slight_smile:

Installing Ubunu MATE as an OEM
#5

See - http://askubuntu.com/questions/36671/how-do-i-pre-install-ubuntu-for-someone-oem-install

which refers (I think) to - https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ubuntu_OEM_Installer_Overview

also - My work stopped using Ubuntu Mate which showed me a while ago that oem installs exist.

It’s easy to install Ubuntu on a computer for someone else, so that you can customize it for their needs but they can still perform the final basic setup (username, password, language, etc.). This installation is primarily used by shops that clean up a used computer and resell it.

In the live CD/USB, press F4 which gives you the OEM Install (for manufacturers). Click on it and then click on install Ubuntu.

Enter a temporary username, password and machine-name for the customization phase. Install and restart. I used “oem” for both username and password. The machine name I used was “laminar”. I don’t think that any of this particularly matters.

You are now in the customization phase: Do NOT click on the “Prepare for shipping…” icon until you have finished upgrading, doing updates, installing software, removing software, changing wallpapers, etc. You can reboot as many times as you want. After 4 days, I was still in the customization phase on a toshiba netbook.

#6

Ok, I finally got around to this. (I would have done it sooner but several things all happened at once and I just didn’t have the time I thought I’d have.)

So I’m going along, making changes and installing software when I realize that I’m not sure how to make the panel background be inherited by the user. According to the documentation I’ve seen it’s pretty clear that the OEM process uses a temporary account that is deleted when the installation is finalized. How then do I get my panel backgrounds to be configured? I was looking into the /etc/skel setup as the simplest way to get the wallpaper and the browser configuration to be inherited but I have no idea how to copy over the setting which tells the desktop to use my preferred background for the panels. I don’t even know where it’s stored at!

Can anyone please advise me further? Thanks again.

#7

@bornagainpenguin Everything that you do in the OEM install will be used by whoever personalizes this account with their user name, their password and their computer name.

There is no reason to look in /etc/skel or anywhere else - just install and set up the account as you wish it to be. When you are done, then and only then, click on the “Prepare for shipping…” icon and shut down the system. It’s pretty easy.

#8

Yeah I eventually did this and it didn’t retain any of the customizations I made. The OS was updated, the additional apps installed. The preferred font was not available. The wallpaper was not set to the chosen default. The Web browser had none of the addons I selected (ublock origin) installed.

So apparently you DO need /etc/skel for that stuff.

#9

You can believe that “/etc/skel” stuff if you want. All I know is that I kept an OEM install going through out a full week last time, rebooting any time I thought that I needed to add one more finishing detail. The OEM process works. Sort of… See post below.

The day I passed the computer on to someone else, I closed down the account by clicking on the Prepare for shipping icon and it worked as expected.

Good luck bornagainpenguin.

#10

Did the OEM install you were building use custom fonts, wallpaper, and browser customizations?

The OEM aspect is nice! But I’m not seeing the user interface customization being handed over. The updates were there. The new apps were installed. Just none of the customizations.

#11

Yes to all of the above. Did you check these things at each boot?

#12

Yes, for the entire time I was building it and then right before I set it for shipping.

#13

@mdooley, @bornagainpenguin what versions of Ubuntu MATE did you guys respectively use?

#14

My profound apologies @bornagainpenguin, I just checked an OEM install of mate 16.04.3 that I began last November, on a 32 bit single core laptop and after clicking on the “Prepare for shipping…” icon, I rebooted it myself and went through the new user business. None of my customizations nor files under /home were saved.

Firefox was the 56 version and all the software and updates were good but the user interface was strictly that of a fresh installation. And as you noted, Firefox had no extensions installed. There was no ~/.fonts file so no custom fonts were available. I still had a customized grub.

I assumed that the work I had previously done resulted in a custom install but this was evidently not the case. I won’t be wasting time on this again. Sorry to have mislead you.

Edit: I also created a data partition at the time of the install that survived intact. This might help someone who is not a novice ubuntu user. I wish that the OEM function worked more like what we both wanted it to.

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#15

I was using Ubuntu-Mate 16.04.3, the LTS release.

Well I’m gratified to see that your experience matched my own once you actually completed the OEM install ‘Prepare for shipping’ bit.

I won’t myself give up entirely until I have a chance to test things out with the /etc/skel as well as the OEM install sections to see if both combined bring together the level of customization I seek. If a future attempt fails when using both options then I’ll join you in my disgust at a fractured method of creating custom images.

But that was the nature of why I brought up the /etc/skel section in the first place for confirmation before closing the image. Sadly no one else seemed to know at the time I was asking and researching. The next time I’ll update my OEM install, add preferred applications and customize wallpaper, fonts, etc etc and then copy the contents of the /home folder (using the show hidden files option) from a root caja session and paste them all in /etc/skel and then close the image.

#16

Good luck then @bornagainpenguin