Ubuntu Desktop Provision

Bugs

Please report any bugs related to Ubuntu Desktop Provision on Launchpad. We use the GitHub issue tracker only for issues related to the development of Ubuntu Desktop Provision itself.

24.04.1 OEM provisioning

For configuring an OEM provisioning flow for Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS, where user creation and account setup is handled seperately to system setup, please refer to this guide.

Configuration

The full configuration guide can be read here.

But the basics are that the UI can be configured using a YAML file that is read from here: /usr/share/desktop-provision/whitelabel.yaml

The configuration file has the following structure:

# (Optional) Drives overall behavior for specific provisioners.
#
# Options:
# - standard (default): the common provision flow for Ubuntu Desktop and Flavors
# - oem: enables the eula page and disables the user creation page during bootstrap
# - core-desktop: disables exiting the installer at the end (because there is no
#   live session), and only allows to reboot
mode: standard | oem | core-desktop

# (Optional) When set, the light and dark theme is inherited from ubuntu-flutter-plugins and the distro name is set.
#
# Options:
# - budgie
# - cinnamon
# - edubuntu
# - kubuntu
# - kylin
# - lubuntu
# - mate
# - studio
# - unity
# - xubuntu
flavor: <name>

# (Optional) Sets the window's title (e.g. the text in alt|super + tab)
app-name: <string>

# (Optional) Overrides the theme's accent colors (remember the quotes)
theme:
  light:
    accent-color: <color-hex-code> # i.e. "#ff0011"
    elevated-button-color: <color-hex-code>
    elevated-button-text-color: <color-hex-code>
  dark:
    accent-color: <color-hex-code> # i.e. "#ff0011"
    elevated-button-color: <color-hex-code>
    elevated-button-text-color: <color-hex-code>

# (Optional) Override a page's image asset and whether they should be shown or not.
# Images expected in /usr/share/desktop-provision/images/<image-name>
#
# Bootstrap pages:
# - locale: Select the interface language
# - accessibility: Allow user to configure GNOME accessibility options
# - try-or-install: Choose between trying the live session or installing (only shown when --try-or-install is passed)
# - rst: Identifies if the computer has Intel Rapid Storage Technology (rst) active
# - keyboard: Set keyboard layout
# - network: Connect to a network
# - refresh: Expose installer's auto-update mechanism
# - source-selection: Choose installation source, i.e. which applications that should be installed
# - codecs-and-drivers: Choose if proprietary codecs and drivers should be installed
# - not-enough-disk-space: Notifies if there is insufficient disk space
# - secure-boot: Handles secure boot
# - storage: Select target disk and partition
# - storage-icon: Not a separate page, but sets the distribution icon on the storage page
# - identity: Create the first-user account (only displayed if mode = default)
# - confirm: A summary of the installation and confirmation button to start the install
# - done: Choose whether to restart or continue testing in the live session
# - error: The page that shows when something goes wrong
#
# Init pages (for oem only)
# - identity: Create the first-user account
# - ubuntu-pro-onboarding: Enable Ubuntu Pro
# - eula: Accept the OEM provided EULA
# - privacy: Enable location services
# - timezone: Set the timezone
# - telemetry: Enable sending telemetry
#
# Do note that currently only ubuntu-pro-onboarding, eula, accessibility, try-or-install, refresh and source-selection can be hidden.
pages:
  <page-name>:
    image: <image-name>
    visible: <bool>

Custom Slides

To customize the slides that are shown while the installation is underway you just need to add a slides directory in /usr/share/desktop-provision/slides and add numbered subdirectories with localized html-files and image files in there. The numbers determine in which order the slides should be.

An example structure could look like this:

/usr/share/desktop-provision
└── slides
   ├── 1
   │   ├── animal.svg
   │   ├── slide_de_DE.svg
   │   ├── slide_en_US.svg
   │   ├── slide_sv_FI.svg
   │   └── slide_sv_SE.html
   ├── 2
   │   ├── slide_en_US.html
   │   └── store.png
   └── 3
       ├── slide_en_US.html
       └── vscode.png

If the locale that the user currently is using doesn't have a corresponding html file it will fall back to slide_en_US.html. See the Language code format section for further details about the language code format.

Do note that the HTML supported in these “html” files is far from the full standard, so we recommend that you use one of the templates provided as the default slides: https://github.com/canonical/ubuntu-desktop-provision/tree/main/packages/ubuntu_bootstrap/assets/slides

EULA

EULA assets are expected to reside in /usr/share/desktop-provision/eula/ with the file name including the language code: EULA_.pdf. If the is not available, the default file EULA.pdf will be used. The language code format is the same as is used for slides, for example: EULA_en_US.pdf, see the Language code format section for further details,

Language code format

The language code format that is used is the two-letter language code followed by a two-letter country code (see the ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1 standards). The language code represents the primary language, while the country code specifies the regional or national variant of that language. For example en_US represents American English and pt_BR represents Brazilian Portuguese.

Repository Structure

Branches and Snap Packages

Active development for all snaps built from this monorepo takes place on the main branch. To continue supporting Ubuntu releases with bug fixes, dedicated branches (e.g. ubuntu/24.04) are created once development on features for an upcoming release begins. Snaps are built from dedicated branches that only contain the snapcraft.yaml (and related files) for a given snap. In order to create a new snap build on launchpad the source-commit in the snapcraft.yaml on the corresponding branch (see table below) needs to be updated.

Snap name	Flutter package	Snap branches
ubuntu-desktop-bootstrap	ubuntu_bootstrap	snap/ubuntu-desktop-bootstrap/*
ubuntu-desktop-init	ubuntu_init	snap/ubuntu-desktop-init/*
factory-reset-tools	factory_reset_tools	snap/factory-reset-tools/*

Frontend

The UI is written in Flutter and consists of multiple Dart/Flutter packages contained in packages/. The most important ones are:

• ubuntu_bootstrap - Flutter UI that drives subiquity in the 'device bootstrap' stage. This is the core of the ubuntu-desktop-bootstrap snap and replaces the ubuntu-desktop-installer.
• ubuntu_init - Flutter UI that drives provd in the 'first boot initialization' stage. This is the core of the ubuntu-desktop-init snap and serves as a replacement for gnome-initial-setup.
• ubuntu_provision - Flutter package that contains shared code and pages used by both ubuntu_bootstrap and ubuntu_init.
• ubuntu_wizard - Flutter package that provides the common wizard-style UI framework.
• subiquity_client and provd_client - Dart packages that provide a client library for the different backends.

Backend

TODO

Contributing

See our contributor guidelines.

License

The Ubuntu Desktop Provision is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3.