Image configuration support

By one-off, I mean changing some small thing about the image, like the hostname or a static ip address. One use case is for classrooms that may be using embedded devices and want to set them up without having to boot and log into each device (comes from here).

I’m guessing to make this work, the image file would have to have a FAT partition since that is pretty much the only partition type that works on all OSes without additional software. A simple solution might be to have the image file could have extended meta data mount this partition and open a configuration file in the OS default text editor when the image burn is finished instead of ejecting the drive. Or even better, a simple text editor built into Etcher so that Etcher can eject the drive when editing is finished.

For example, in our ev3dev OS for Raspberry Pi, users always need to edit config.txt to select which add-on board they are using since there are multiple add-on boards and they cannot be automatically detected.

[ensonic]

+1 Another usecase for such a feature would be to setup wifi. On many devices entering the wifi settings is hard. I don’t want to complicate the feature request, but I wonder if it should be considered to be able to re-run the customization steps on a preflashed image?

[konmouz]

After a conversation with @alexandrosm regarding how (and if) image configuration can fit to v01, I have some exploration. The idea is to fit image configuration within ‘Image Info modal’. This window can appear by user’s request (when clicking the image name or the ‘i’ icon on the main UI window), or automatically when a new image is selected (only when necessary).

Pinging @jviotti & @taahirisaacs, to initiate this discussion. *Note: The modal is scrollable and current content is a rough estimation (would change according to the selected image).

Current ‘Image Information Modal’:

Potential Update: