ThinLinX TLXOS 64-bit Firmware Installation Guide for the Intel NUC Range The Intel NUC is a small form factor computer that incorporates several models from Intel Core processors to the economical Single Core Intel Atom processor. ThinLinX TLXOS supports the entire Intel NUC range We do not sell the NUC, customers can purchase the NUC anywhere in the World through Intel s normal sales channels. TLXOS Licenses can be purchased online from the ThinLinX Website below for US$15 per NUC http://thinlinx.com/order.php ThinLinX has created an optimized version of ThinLinX OS (TLXOS) for the NUC making full use of the SSE4 and MMX instruction sets; we also use the H.264 hardware decoder to deliver outstanding Performance for single or dual displays. TLXOS is very memory efficient thus 2GB of RAM is recommended; using more than 2GB will not enhance performance. The low cost Intel Atom DE3815 is the only NUC with a built in 4GB emmc Flash Memory Drive which makes this model exceptional value. TLXOS only requires about 25% of the capacity of this Drive, leaving approximately 3GB free for other files, such as Digital Signage media. The ThinLinX TLXOS firmware is installed in a two-step process Step one: Install the small ThinLinX 13MB installer image which can be installed via a USB stick or via a PXE Network Booted image. The Installer converts the NUC into a ThinLinX device, which can be licensed and registered. Step two: Use the ThinLinX Management Software to install TLXOS Materials Required One Server running Citrix or your preference of Remote Technology. One system running TMS (ThinLinX Management Software), and a NUC client. All machines should be hooked up to the same switch or Router. It is essential that there is a DHCP server attached for the installation. After the installation of TLXOS is completed, the NUC can be easily configured for remote Management using TMS. NUC s can be situated anywhere in the World and managed from a single location once configured for Remote Management.
Creating the Installer (Step 1) 1. Download the ThinLinX Installer image to a Windows PC or Windows Laptop, by going to, www.thinlinx.com and selecting Downloads at the top of the page. Do NOT Download the image to the USB stick that you want to use for the installation, please ensure you save the image to the PC or Laptop Hard Drive To download the ThinLinX installer, click on the link, TLXOS 64-bit installer Figure 1 2. Insert a USB stick into the PC or Laptop. Windows may pop up a box saying, You need to format the disk in drive G: before you can use it, if so click on Format Disk. Navigate to where you downloaded the tlxos_nuc64_installer-2.4.exe file and double click on it. Click on Yes when asked the question in the image below Figure 2 This will unpack the ThinLinX Installer image and launch Win32Diskimager which will prompt you to write the Installer to the USB stick. Select the USB stick in the Device menu, and click on Write button to create the ThinLinX installer.
Figure 3 Ignore the Warning message below, just click on Yes and the ThinLinX installer will be written to the USB Stick Figure 4 After writing the image you may see the message in the image below, if so you can safely ignore it Figure 5
Installing the Installer image on the NUC (Step 1 continued) 3. Unplug the USB stick from the PC or Laptop and insert into the NUC, then power on the NUC while pressing F2 to enter the BIOS. In order for the Atom DE3815 NUC to display the emmc it needs to be activated in the BIOS. Click Advanced in the Boot Order box, then click the Boot Configuration tab, and choose Linux in the OS Selection pull down menu. Also, under OS Selection make sure Boot USB devices first is checked. Tap the F10 key, on the keyboard, (or the X button on the top right of the screen) which will ask you if you d like to save your changes, click on Yes. *If for some reason the NUC does not boot from the USB stick, you can reboot the NUC and tap the F10 key until a boot menu appears. Once in that menu, select the USB stick and hit enter. 4. The ThinLinX installer will run and display the ThinLinX Firmware Maintenance screen for 10 seconds, if you press a Key while this screen is displayed the boot is interrupted allowing you to select any of the four options. In the case of a new NUC with storage that has never been used you don t need to interrupt the boot. In the case of a NUC that has another Operating System or has had Data written to it, you MUST select the second option, Wipe Everything and (Re) Install TLXOS. Figure 6 The NUC will boot to the installation screen shown in Figure 7 below. The ThinLinX installer is now running completely in RAM Memory but still needs access to some information on the installer USB stick, ensure you leave the USB stick plugged in for the next step Even though you may have selected Wipe Everything and (Re) Install TLXOS nothing is erased yet as the NUC has not been given permission to write to its storage. TMS is used to detect the storage in the NUC and approve that storage for installation. This procedure is explained in further detail later in this document.
Figure 7 * NOTE: All of the additional steps will be completed on a different computer, which will run the ThinLinX Management Software (TMS). You can NOT Register the NUC at this point in the installation, you must first write the installer to the storage device following the procedure later in this document.
Loading the ThinLinX TLXOS on the NUC (Step 2) 5. Download and install the Windows version of the ThinLinX Management Software (TMS) from, www.thinlinx.com click on the Downloads link, and download TMS server 7.8.0 for Windows. Do NOT Download TMSv7.7.4 for TLX1000 only Figure 8 *ThinLinX will soon be releasing Linux and Apple Mac versions of TMS but for now, you must install TMS on a Windows PC or Laptop. 6. Next install TMS. It can be installed anywhere, but it s recommended to be installed in the default location the installer provides. TMS will automatically create the following subdirectories, firmware, hotfix, temp and tmsclient within the folder that was created. If you choose an installation Directory yourself you must ensure you have Write permissions for that directory otherwise TMS will not be able to unzip the TLXOS Firmware that you download in the next steps. 7. After installation, right click the TMS Icon and select Run as Administrator Figure 9
8. The first step with a new installation of TMS is to download the Firmware for your NUC, this is downloaded once by TMS and stored in the TMS firmware subdirectory. It is then used to flash as many NUC s as you have. Alternatively you can click on the Wizard Icon to automate the installation process. 9. To download the firmware, click on the Download icon, click OK in the Downloads updates dialog box. In the next dialog box, select the server closest to your location in the drop down menu, and then ensure you select only the Firmware that you need for your NUC. Select the TLX NUC 64 Firmware 3.18.6-3.5.10 version of TLXOS by clicking in the small square selection box immediately to the left of the filename, and press OK, the download will start and progress can be seen in the bottom left corner of TMS (Figure 10). Figure 10
Figure 11 10. A dialog box will pop up when the download is finished (it can take several minutes depending on the connection), click OK. 11. When TMS is launched it begins sending UDP discovery broadcasts. Any device running the ThinLinX installer or devices that have already had TLXOS installed appear on the TMS console. In the image below a single NUC has been discovered in installation mode, this is the NUC running the installer from Step One. Note the Blue Status message, Awaiting Firmware Upgrade. A second NUC has already been installed with TLXOS, you can see the Firmware version that is installed on that NUC displayed on the TMS console below
Figure 12 12. The next step is to approve the storage fitted to the NUC for installation of TLXOS, TMS is used to query the NUCs for a list of attached storage. In the case of the Atom DE3815 NUC this storage will be detected as the onboard 4GB emmc flash memory chip, in the case of all the other NUCs it could be any type of storage. First select the NUC for installation by clicking in the small rectangular selection box immediately to the left of the words Set me You can see in the image above the tick in the selection box that this NUC has been selected. Click on the Storage Icon, you will see a message appear stating detecting storage will take about 5 seconds, click on OK to start the storage detection process
Figure 13 In the image above in Figure 13 you can see the NUC has uploaded the block device list of its attached storage, which is displayed on TMS. Two potential storage devices have been detected, one is the emmc Flash memory chip which has been auto selected and the other is the USB installation stick. When the OK button is pressed the NUC will begin writing the installer image to the selected storage, in this case the onboard emmc flash memory chip. The image below shows that the ThinLinX installer installation is complete You MUST remove the USB stick from the NUC at this point. If you have more than one NUC just reuse the USB stick on each NUC following the same procedure above for each. If you have a large quantity of NUCs you can configure the first NUC using TMS to be a PXE boot server, and PXE boot the installer to all the other NUCs. The full details on how to do this are at the end of this document.
Figure 14 13. The next step is to purchase a license for the NUC, a License has to be purchased before the ThinLinX TLXOS can be installed. To purchase a NUC license for US$15 follow the link below: https://tls.thinlinx.com/store/index.php/thinclient/tlxos-nuc-firmware-licence.html *To use a free TLXOS trial License use the same link above, select 1 as the quantity to add, and on the next page paste the License code into the discount codes box, this will change the balance due to zero...see image below (Figure 15)
Figure 15 As part of the license purchase procedure you will need to use an email address and create a password which are used by TMS to register every NUC for which a license has been purchased. You may also use the email address and password to log into to the ThinLinX licensing server, to see details on the licenses you have purchased, just connect to, https://tls.thinlinx.com/ If you have any Registration problems please run Internet Explorer (don t use any other Browser) and try to connect to https://tls.thinlinx.com/, if you cannot connect to and log into the ThinLinX License Server, TMS will not be able to connect to and log into the License Server either for Product Registration. If you are running TMS on Windows 8.0 and Windows 8.1 Enterprise version you must first connect to https://tls.thinlinx.com/ using Internet Explorer only, this will download the required SSL certificate to allow TMS to communicate with the ThinLinX License Server. Other versions of Windows already have the required SSL Certificate file installed. Ensure you are running TMS as the Administrator 14. Once the license has been purchased the NUC can be registered. Click the check box next to each NUC discovered, you will see a checkmark appear in the box to indicate that this NUC is selected. (Note: clicking on the line that the NUC appears in will not select it; you must click in the small square
selection box and see the checkmark appear). Once selected, the NUC can be registered by selecting Tools on the menu bar, then Product Registration. Figure 16 This action above will prompt for the registration details, which you can see in the image below Figure 17
Once the NUC is registered the Status message will change to Product Registered (Figure 16). NOTE: The machine running TMS must be connected to the Internet. *Multiple NUC s can be registered simultaneously if they are selected and sufficient licenses have been purchased. Figure 18 15. The TLXOS firmware can now be installed by clicking on the Upgrade Icon. A Firmware selection box will appear with two options, Install latest Firmware or Select firmware to install.
Figure 19 16. Once Install latest Firmware version 3.18.6-3.5.10 or Let me choose the firmware to install, is chosen, a dialog box will pop up with a notification saying, Note it takes about 6 minutes, click Yes. Note, multiple NUC s can be upgraded simultaneously Figure 20 17. Once the NUC comes back online the name can be changed so it s easier to keep track of.
Figure 21 18. Once the NUC has rebooted, many options such as Protocol, the server to connect to, Login Name, Password, Auto Connect, etc. can be configured using TMS, or these options can be changed on the configuration menu on the NUC itself. NOTE: Make sure the selection box is checked on the device that s being updated. *ThinLinX has developed a PXE Network boot version of the installer image that will enable multiple NUC s to be flashed with the installer image simultaneously via PXE boot (this is suitable for large installations or Factory installs). To configure this mode, select Tools / Configuration / Set PXE server configuration
Figure 21 The PXE server mode allows a single NUC to serve the ThinLinX NUC installation image to as many NUCs as you wish. In this example I have configured a NUC to act as a PXE boot & DHCP Server but to only respond to PXE boot requests, supplying the DHCP Address s and image information only for PXE boot devices. I have a DHCP server serving a lower range of Address s on the same Network as other devices and this PXE configuration does not conflict with the installed ADSL Modem / DHCP Server See PXE Server configuration information in the image below Figure 22
The NUC when configured as a PXE boot server can be used as a thin client at the same time as it is being used to serve PXE boot requests. After configuring the NUC as a PXE boot Server use TMS to reboot it, this will save the PXE boot configuration information to the storage After TLXOS is installed you can connect to remote sessions using many different Remote Desktop protocols including Citrix HDX, Microsoft RDP, RemoteFX 7.1 & RemoteFX 8.1 TLXOS Support for dual screen and triple Screen Digital Signage is now integrated; TLXOS support for the upcoming Intel Compute Stick will be completed by early April 2015, the price for the TLXOS Compute stick version is US$10 Figure 23 **If TMS does not discover the NUC, return to the NUC and press Control ALT t (lower case t) to bring up an xterm terminal. Enter /sbin/ifconfig in the xterm, and then press enter to check that the NUC has received an IP ADDRESS from your DHCP Server, it is essential that the NUC has received an IP address in order to be Discovered by TMS. A DHCP server MUST be on the Network for this first stage; a Static IP can be set later if needed, after the TLXOS-NUC firmware is running. Please email any questions to info@thinlinx.com