GUI tool to flash Skybian for Skyminer on SD card images of any kind

With this tool you will download, configure, create and flash the default skybian image to your custom environment.

The resulting images will only run on the official skyminer hardware, the one based on Orange Pi Prime SBC.

Skyflash

The preferred method to configure & flash the official skybian images is by using this tool

Installing or upgrading

The Skyflash tool is a standalone app (often called a "portable app"), so you just download the app and run it. To get the latest version just go to the Releases link on this page and grab the file matching to your OS.

If you has an old version already, just erase the old one and use the new one.

Usage

To see more detailed instructions on how to use the Skyflash utility please visit the User's Manual

Developers & testers

If you are eager to build it yourself take into account that the base OS for dev is Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, but most of it works on OSX also if you tweak some items (see notes below)

The project use the GNU Make to test and build so you can as for help like this make help:

$ make help
deps                           Install all the needed deps to build it in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS and alike
deps-windows                   Installs a docker image to build the windows .exe from inside linux
init                           Initial cleanup, erase even the final app dir
clean                          Clean the environment to have a fresh start
build                          Build the pip compatible install file
install                        Install the built pip file
win-flasher                    Create the flasher tool for windows (for travis only)
win-flasher-dev                Create the flasher tool for windows (no internet needed if you run "make deps-windows" already)
win                            Create a windows static app (for travis only)
win-dev                        Create a windows static app using local dev tools (no internet needed if you run "make deps-windows" already)
posix-streamer                 Create the linux/macos streamer to help with the flashing
linux-static                   Create a linux amd64 compatible static (portable) app
macos-app                      Create the macos standalone app

As you can see the options are self explanatory, just a few must know notes:

• Option starting with deps works only on Linux, on OSX you will need to install a few packages to get the environment ready to work:
  • xcode, brew, python3, pyqt5 & pyinstaller
• Use the init option to deep clean the working environment, this will also erase the pre-built apps.
• Use the clean option to soft clean the working environment, this will not erase the pre-built apps in the final folder.
• Options ending on -dev are meant to be used on linux local environments and will not pull any data from the internet if you run the deps & deps-windows before while connected to the internet.
• Option deps-windows installs docker for your distribution, this target is meant to build the needed toolchain in linux to build the windows app and has a trick:
  • If you don't have docker installed already you must run it, reboot or logout/login and run it again to finish the install.
• Once you run any of the release related options (win-dev, linux-static, macos-app) your app will be sitting on a folder named final

Releases

To do a release you must follow these steps:

0. Clone the repository in a personal or org repository (default develop one is at Simelo org) and check travis has take over it and is functional

1. Check if there are commits on the master branch that must be applied to your develop (hot fixes or security ones), apply them and fix any merge issues

2. Create a release-v#.#.# branch in your repository, this will be the work playground, the numbers are the next logical release, see CHANGELOG file to see what's next

3. Check any pending issues in order to close them if possible on this release cycle

4. Check the latest release of Skybian and if the URL of the latest image is different update it

5. Merge your release branch into the master of your repo and check for travis results, if al goes well you will see 3 new draft releases in your repository (you may need to update the deploy credentials)

6. Update the new version number in the setup.py, skyflash/data/skyflash.qml & skyflash/utils.py files.

7. Update the CHANGELOG.md file with any needed info and move the Unreleased part to the new release version.

8. Review & update the README.md file for any needed updates or changes that need attention in the front page.

9. Push changes and wait for travis to validate all the changes.

10. On success, check the draft release is published on the repository, improve it and keep it as a draft.

11. Download the releases files and test them.

12. If problems are found with raise issues where needed (skyflash/skybian) and fix them before continue with the next step.

13. Download the releases files after the fix in the previous step (if needed) and test them.

14. Fix any issues if found (work in the release branch)

15. After all problems are solved and work as expected update the version.txt file with the version number, like this: v0.0.4

16. Raise a PR against master branch in the skycoin repository, solve any issues and merge it (or wait for a privileged user to do it)

17. Wait for travis completion and check the release files are published on the Github repository under releases.

18. Edit & comment the release with the changes in CHANGELOG.md that match this release, change status from Draft to Official release.

19. Merge master into develop.

20. Check if there is needed to raise issues & PR on the following repositories:

    • Skybian: if needed.
    • Skycoin: mentions in it's README.md and elsewhere if applicable
    • Skywire: to note the new release and the use of skyflash