Images and educational content

New functions are available from Labtix 2. In recent years, Labtix has become the most used installation tool worldwide within the Labdoo project.
In keeping with this, Labdoo (Germany) has been providing "pre-assembled, ready-made" images for cloning on the FTP server in various languages and contents for years. And here success has created a bottleneck. Thousands of helpers are now downloading the freely available, free images from the FTP server. The infrastructure and bandwidth, kindly provided free of charge by the Polytechnica Barcelona data center, are being shared by more and more users and this leads to slow downloads.
We have therefore expanded our concept. 2.09 can now handle both "finished" images as before, but also the new BASIC images without content.
These "finished" images will soon be removed from the FTP server. You will then find BASIC images prepared in 4 languages.

The big advantage:
There are now only 4 small BASIC images each approx. 16 GB (DE, EN, ES, FR), which drastically reduces the upload and download volume. So far all images were around 500 GB...

How does it work?
There are now control files that tell Labtix what content to install where. This affects the Kiwix and browser-based archives, which were previously part of the "finished" images.
This means that content is not saved multiple times in images, but only once in the folder http://ftp.labdoo.org/download/install-disk/wiki-archive/ (you also need the subfolders here locally from the FTP server or ask for them via USB disk from your national hub representative).
This additional feature has other advantages. For example, you can create your own control files and quickly exchange them with each other, e.g. a file for reinstalling special content. Using a control file, it is also possible to install additional learning content in additional languages, e.g. the FR content for the EN_250 package.
The name of the control file specifies: 1. Language at the front refers to the BASIC image, i.e. for EN_250.txt = selects the image EN_BASIC, 250 refers to the recommended disk size of 250 GB. So everything as before. EN_FR_320.txt does the same thing, but also adds the French content, then needs 320 GB. By the way, FR_EN_250 matches the FR_BASIC image and installs EN content to it. In one case the system language when starting up is French, in the other case it is English.

What's the catch?
You need at least Labtix 2.09 (or higher) http://ftp.labdoo.org/download/install-disk/Labtix/ and the learning content http://ftp.labdoo.org/download/install-disk/wiki-archive/ .
An installation may take slightly longer. But you save a lot of time when downloading the images. If you have to install a lot of devices, you can save a local image you created yourself. Everything you need is included in Labtix.

Where can we find what?
Control files http://ftp.labdoo.org/download/install-disk/wiki-archive/control_files/
Content http://ftp.labdoo.org/download/install-disk/wiki-archive/
Current Labtix version http://ftp.labdoo.org/download/install-disk/Labtix/

Technical information:
Control files must be located locally on a data storage medium or server near the content folders with Kiwx, among others in the /content_files/ folder.
Only local content on USB drives or local servers is supported. Remote servers over the Internet are deliberately not usable.
The control files need a certain syntax. Please refer to the examples (blank lines between comments and content; #### before headings, ####2nd_lang, etc.).
If you want to use your own content, its archive name must match the name in the control file.
For content with a date in the name (e.g. for Kiwix) a wildcard (*) is possible. So you could always install Wikipedia with the control file, regardless of the version.
Content can be installed once during installation. Or later via installscript-content.sh in the scripts folder on the desktop.

We would be happy to hear your suggestions.