AlexWilMac
Moderator
As of the title, I didn't wrote this article as a sort of guide to OpenMultiboot (OMB, since now onwards) but to share my experience and give some hints to simplify some operations.
So, this isn't a magic guide with unknown tricks: is just made of simple, useful things.
In my view, what I find really comfortable about OMB isn't just and only the chance to install several images and have them all available at the same time (without having to flash and then flashing back to the previous image: this is great, of course), but the fact you can operate directly within the OMB images while running your image installed in flash.
This way, you can prepare or set a lot of aspects while the OMB images are not even running!
To do that, first of all you need a FTP client. I'll refer some concepts to Filezilla just because it's free, it's for every OSs (OsX, Linux and Windows) and it's probably the most spread and well known, but the same features are found in other FTP clients. For instance, in this article I'll refer to the bookmarks feature. Obviously, other clients have this feature as well, only they work differently.
I'll also assume that OMB is installed in the HDD (which was my choice), but nothing changes (apart from the device, of course) if you have it installed in USB: you'll read "USB" every time I'll write "HDD".
1) OMB STRUCTURE
Once you set OMB for the first time, you'll have two new folders in your chosen device. So, in the HDD case, you'll see:
/media/hdd/open-multiboot
/media/hdd/open-multiboot-upload
I added both of them to my FZ bookmarks, 'cause they are used quite often. This is my first advice in this guide.
2) ZIP NAMES
In the folder named open-multiboot-upload put the images zipped. These might be either the official images (already zipped) or your FULL backups zipped by yourselves.
In both cases, is very recommended to use short names, not only for the OMB install process to succeed but also for your own usefulness because the OMB process creates a subfolder in the main OMB folder, that is indeed /media/hdd/open-multiboot, with the same name you give to the zip file.
So, if the zip file is named BH304.zip, you'll get /media/hdd/open-multiboot/BH304
So, the shorter the name, the shorter the path and the easier to have it completely shown in FZ right window.
Note about full backups zipped under OsX: I create this zip files by the utility KEKA because it gets an option to exclude the .dot, hidden files automatically created by native OsX compress command and which caused some problems in the past to the process.
3) ONE, TWO, MANY OMB ROOTS
Once you install at least one image (or full backup), you have one (or many) OMB "roots" for these images. For instance, in the /media/hdd/open-multiboot/ folder, you might have:
/BH304
/Vti
/OpenPli
and so on, corresponding to the images you've installed. Note that the folder names comes from the zip file, as said above. Within the OMB menu, you'll read the name of the image.
Entering each one of these folder, you have exactly the same structure of a root.
4) FAST SWITCHING FROM FLASH PATHS TO OMB PATHS
Now it's time to create, if not already done, the bookmarks corresponding to the important paths in flash.
The goal is to work on OMB images directly by FZ. This is useful for many reasons: you can transfer settings (meant as channels but also as other personalized "settings", like timers or else).
This way, most of the boring part installing a new image not only can be done without any hurry to get to a perfectly set image as we like it to be (and this is the main advantage of using OMB, in my opinion, not just the sheer chance of having many images in your pocket at the same time), but also it's possible to set a lot of parts without having to immediately reboot into the "secondary" image and work inside it. You'll be working, comfortably seat on your sofa, while using your current image already 100% set.
Some example to clarify what I mean.
Let's say you have your OMB image set and working but you are now running the image in flash.
Just to define a scenario, let's assume the image in flash is OBH and one of the OMB ones is BH. You are using OBH where you have a long list of timers and you want BH have the same list without having to re-programme anything.
Copying the timers from current image to your PC is easy. Less easy would be to upload it into a running image because the timers.xml file cannot be transferred while the image is running: instead, you have to reboot it and then send it before the GUI is loaded. This can be made simply repeating the upload again and again, quickly, during the booting, but it is surely quite annoying. Instead, the trick is:
a) bookmark the timers path: /etc/enigma2
b) bookmark the OMB root (in my example: /media/hdd/open-multiboot/BH-3.0.4/
c) copy the file timers.xml from flash (/etc/enigma2) to your PC
d) copy the string "/etc/enigma2", select in FZ the OMB root bookmark (/media/hdd/open-multiboot/BH-3.0.4) and paste the timers path, "/etc/enigma2" after the OMB root bookmark. Now you'll be within /media/hdd/open-multiboot/BH-3.0.4/etc/enigma2
e) upload the timers.xml file to the current selected remote folder, the one in d). This way, you'll be able to overwrite the timers without having to reboot anything. When you'll reboot into BH in OMB, you'll get your timers ready even there.
One might say: why don't you bookmark both paths directly, instead of the OMB root only and then paste the subpath? For instance, it'd be easier to bookmark:
/etc/enigma2
and also
/media/hdd/open-multiboot/BH-3.0.4/etc/enigma2
Yes, it might be easier, unless you have, like me, many flash bookmarks and several images installed in OMB. I have, for instance, about 18 "main" bookmarks and 3 images. If I stored complete paths, I'd have 18x3=54 bookmarks. Instead, I only have 18+1 (the /media/hdd/open-multiboot folder) or, if you prefer, 18+3 OMB roots.
As I said, this one I gave is only an example about how comfortable is to work directly in OMB. The more you know your image folders and settings, the more you can do directly this way.
So, this isn't a magic guide with unknown tricks: is just made of simple, useful things.
In my view, what I find really comfortable about OMB isn't just and only the chance to install several images and have them all available at the same time (without having to flash and then flashing back to the previous image: this is great, of course), but the fact you can operate directly within the OMB images while running your image installed in flash.
This way, you can prepare or set a lot of aspects while the OMB images are not even running!
To do that, first of all you need a FTP client. I'll refer some concepts to Filezilla just because it's free, it's for every OSs (OsX, Linux and Windows) and it's probably the most spread and well known, but the same features are found in other FTP clients. For instance, in this article I'll refer to the bookmarks feature. Obviously, other clients have this feature as well, only they work differently.
I'll also assume that OMB is installed in the HDD (which was my choice), but nothing changes (apart from the device, of course) if you have it installed in USB: you'll read "USB" every time I'll write "HDD".
1) OMB STRUCTURE
Once you set OMB for the first time, you'll have two new folders in your chosen device. So, in the HDD case, you'll see:
/media/hdd/open-multiboot
/media/hdd/open-multiboot-upload
I added both of them to my FZ bookmarks, 'cause they are used quite often. This is my first advice in this guide.
2) ZIP NAMES
In the folder named open-multiboot-upload put the images zipped. These might be either the official images (already zipped) or your FULL backups zipped by yourselves.
In both cases, is very recommended to use short names, not only for the OMB install process to succeed but also for your own usefulness because the OMB process creates a subfolder in the main OMB folder, that is indeed /media/hdd/open-multiboot, with the same name you give to the zip file.
So, if the zip file is named BH304.zip, you'll get /media/hdd/open-multiboot/BH304
So, the shorter the name, the shorter the path and the easier to have it completely shown in FZ right window.
Note about full backups zipped under OsX: I create this zip files by the utility KEKA because it gets an option to exclude the .dot, hidden files automatically created by native OsX compress command and which caused some problems in the past to the process.
3) ONE, TWO, MANY OMB ROOTS
Once you install at least one image (or full backup), you have one (or many) OMB "roots" for these images. For instance, in the /media/hdd/open-multiboot/ folder, you might have:
/BH304
/Vti
/OpenPli
and so on, corresponding to the images you've installed. Note that the folder names comes from the zip file, as said above. Within the OMB menu, you'll read the name of the image.
Entering each one of these folder, you have exactly the same structure of a root.
4) FAST SWITCHING FROM FLASH PATHS TO OMB PATHS
Now it's time to create, if not already done, the bookmarks corresponding to the important paths in flash.
The goal is to work on OMB images directly by FZ. This is useful for many reasons: you can transfer settings (meant as channels but also as other personalized "settings", like timers or else).
This way, most of the boring part installing a new image not only can be done without any hurry to get to a perfectly set image as we like it to be (and this is the main advantage of using OMB, in my opinion, not just the sheer chance of having many images in your pocket at the same time), but also it's possible to set a lot of parts without having to immediately reboot into the "secondary" image and work inside it. You'll be working, comfortably seat on your sofa, while using your current image already 100% set.
Some example to clarify what I mean.
Let's say you have your OMB image set and working but you are now running the image in flash.
Just to define a scenario, let's assume the image in flash is OBH and one of the OMB ones is BH. You are using OBH where you have a long list of timers and you want BH have the same list without having to re-programme anything.
Copying the timers from current image to your PC is easy. Less easy would be to upload it into a running image because the timers.xml file cannot be transferred while the image is running: instead, you have to reboot it and then send it before the GUI is loaded. This can be made simply repeating the upload again and again, quickly, during the booting, but it is surely quite annoying. Instead, the trick is:
a) bookmark the timers path: /etc/enigma2
b) bookmark the OMB root (in my example: /media/hdd/open-multiboot/BH-3.0.4/
c) copy the file timers.xml from flash (/etc/enigma2) to your PC
d) copy the string "/etc/enigma2", select in FZ the OMB root bookmark (/media/hdd/open-multiboot/BH-3.0.4) and paste the timers path, "/etc/enigma2" after the OMB root bookmark. Now you'll be within /media/hdd/open-multiboot/BH-3.0.4/etc/enigma2
e) upload the timers.xml file to the current selected remote folder, the one in d). This way, you'll be able to overwrite the timers without having to reboot anything. When you'll reboot into BH in OMB, you'll get your timers ready even there.
One might say: why don't you bookmark both paths directly, instead of the OMB root only and then paste the subpath? For instance, it'd be easier to bookmark:
/etc/enigma2
and also
/media/hdd/open-multiboot/BH-3.0.4/etc/enigma2
Yes, it might be easier, unless you have, like me, many flash bookmarks and several images installed in OMB. I have, for instance, about 18 "main" bookmarks and 3 images. If I stored complete paths, I'd have 18x3=54 bookmarks. Instead, I only have 18+1 (the /media/hdd/open-multiboot folder) or, if you prefer, 18+3 OMB roots.
As I said, this one I gave is only an example about how comfortable is to work directly in OMB. The more you know your image folders and settings, the more you can do directly this way.