Photon RPM OSTree: 2 Installing a host against default server repository
RPM-OSTree Host default installation option will setup a profile similar to Photon Minimal, with the added benefit of being able to self-upgrade.
The RPM-OSTree 'default host' is the easiest way to deploy a Photon RPM-OSTree host and is targeted at the user who relies on VMware Photon OS team to keep his or her system up-to-date, configured to get its updates from the official Photon TP2 OSTree repository.
This is also the fastest way to install (14 seconds on my Mac with SSD after all UI has been enetered), as we've included in the ISO an identical copy of the TP2 "starter" repository that is published online in bintray. So rather than pulling from the online repository, the installer pulls the repo from CD, which also reduces to zero the chances of failing due to a networking problem. After successful installation, any updates are going to be pulled from the online repository, when Photon OS team will make them available.
For the Photon RPM-OSTree host, there is a choice of downloading either the Photon 1.0 TP2 Full ISO File (917 MB) that would setup any of the installation profiles, or the much smaller Photon 1.0 TP2 OSTree Host ISO File (257 MB) that is designed specifically for the Photon host.
There are some common steps to all Photon installation profiles, starting with setting up a VM in WMware Fusion, Workstation or ESXi box, selecting disk size, CPU, memory amount, loading the ISO, followed by disk auto-partitioning and accepting the license agreement. These steps are described at the page linked below, so I won't repeat them, just that instead of setting up a Photon Minimal profile, we will install a Photon OSTree host:
Running Project Photon on Fusion.
Select the Photon OSTree Host option, which is new for TP2.
Continue with setting up a host name like photon-host-def and a root password, re-confirm.
Then, select "Default OSTree Server" and continue.
When installation is over, the VM will reboot and will show in grub 1.0_tp2_minimal (ostree), which will reassure that it's booting from an OSTree image!
Boot, login and you are ready to use it! The next chapters are about experimenting first hand and understanding in detail how everything works. If you want to do that later and just want just to update your host, skip to Chapter 5.