DRAFT

Internet-in-a-Box (IIAB) version 8.0 will build on IIAB 7.2, and is expected in Q4 of 2022 (Roadmap Ideas, GitHub Milestone) for DIY digital libraries in schools, clinics and communities across all corners of the planet.

See our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ.IIAB.IO) and consider installing a pre-release today:

  🍓 download.iiab.io 🍓

Do you have great ideas for helpful Internet-in-a-Box videos?

Please do connect with your suggestions, and join us in making this major release happen!

About

Internet-in-a-Box brings the Internet’s crown jewels and the very best of the World’s Free Knowledge (Wikipedia, Khan Academy, OpenStreetMap, E-Books, etc) to those who are burning for learning — but just happen to be offline.

Use drag-and-drop to customize this “learning hotspot” with local gems too — tailored to the needs of your school, your library, your prison, your region and/or your very own family!

Why not build your own LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA with a $35 Raspberry Pi 4 computer, starting today?

What’s New?

• Use the 64-bit OS Raspberry Pi OS (Lite or with desktop) which benchmarks “~48% faster” and allows schools to build up thoughtful e-book collections, e.g. if you run sudo apt install calibre (to install useful tools like calibredb and ebook-convert).
  • BONUS: Your 64-bit Internet-in-a-Box microSD card will work in $15 Zero 2 W computers (if you don’t overstress its 512MB RAM!)
  • Or use the original 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS, if you need your Internet-in-a-Box microSD card(s) to work in the older $10 Raspberry Pi Zero W.
• Support for Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, Ubuntu 22.10 and Mint 21. _{PR #3189 #3307}
  • Preliminary support for Debian 12 Bookworm pre-releases, if you read Section 2. of IIAB Platforms. _#3399
  • Preliminary support for WSL 1.0.0 _#3377
  • IIAB can install Moodle 4.1 LTS prior to its 2022-11-28 expected release, as this now works with the above 2022 OS’s that include PHP 8.1 _{PR #3382}
• IIAB Maps for each continent/region are updated — and downloads are now dramatically faster! You can also now customize the highlighting of OpenStreetMap and Satellite Photo areas of interest. _#3077
• Install (or disable!) IIAB Apps a.k.a. services on-the-fly, using IIAB’s Admin Console Configure menu. Then click Save Configuration followed by Install Configured Options. _{PR iiab-admin-console#475}
  • App install speed is faster! _{PR #3272}
  • Uses skip_role_on_error: True to help you install any large set IIAB Apps without interruption. _{PR #3262}
• Learning Hotspot configuration magic:
  • http://10.10.10.10 = http://box = http://box.lan by popular demand — super-easy to type into every smartphone/tablet/laptop browser! _{PR #3299}
  • How many student Wi-Fi connections do you want your Raspberry Pi’s internal hotspot to offer? You can now set rpizerow_rpi3_wifi_firmware and/or rpi3bplus_rpi4_wifi_firmware in your IIAB’s /etc/iiab/local_vars.yml depending on your scalability-versus-features needs. _{PR #3103}
  • Hotspot (AP mode) capability detection, to help upcycle old laptops into brand new IIAB’s! _{PR #3222}
  • Honor country code if already set by Raspberry Pi OS. _{PR #3179}
• Matomo 4.12.3+ (changelog) is like Google Analytics, but emphasizes privacy and data ownership, with URL box/matomo _{PR #3304}
  • If you just want a quick statistical dashboard, also try AWStats, with URL box/awstats
• It’s now super easy to remotely support your IIAB using https://remote.it — see also “How can I remotely manage my Internet-in-a-Box?” _{PR #3161}
• If you clone your IIAB onto a larger microSD, disk, SSD or USB stick, you can make use of the entire space on the new media (if you create a file named /.expand-rootfs and then reboot the new IIAB, which will auto-expand its root filesystem). This also now works with external USB boot drives. Raspberry Pi OS is supported, with other OS’s possible later. _{PR #3137 #3325 PR #3336 PR #3337 #3362}
• Similar to the iiab-diagnostics command but far more concise: you can also now run iiab-summary to see a 20-25 line overview of your IIAB installation. _{PR #3267}

What’s Upgraded?

• Calibre-Web 0.6.19+ (changelog, docs) with customizable URL’s box/books, box/libros, box/livres
• Kiwix 3.3.0-1 (changelog), based on libzim 8.0.0 (changelog) and libkiwix 11.0.0 (changelog), with URL box/kiwix _{PR #3235}
• Kolibri 0.15.8+ fixes peer importing of channels from “Local network or internet” (changelog, blog). And IIAB now installs Kolibri with the PPA method, making it easy to upgrade using apt update etc. Use Kolibri with URL box/kolibri _{#3227 PR #3327}
• MediaWiki 1.38.4 (changelog), with URL box/wiki _{PR #3386}
• Moodle 4.0.5+ (release notes, changelog, docs). NOTE that IIAB attempts to install the latest weekly pre-release of Moodle 4.1 LTS if your OS is Ubuntu 22.04+ or Mint 21 or Debian 12, as required with PHP 8.1 (whereas after around 2022-11-28 if 4.1 is released on time, IIAB should hopefully install it on Debian 11 and Raspberry Pi OS too!) With URL box/moodle _{PR #3184 PR #3382}
• Nextcloud 25.0.1+ (changelog, schedule) with URL box/nextcloud _{PR #3208}
• WordPress 6.1+ (6.1 field guide, 6.0 field guide, 5.9 field guide, 5.8 field guide, 5.7 field guide, 5.6 field guide) with URL box/wordpress _{PR #3210}
• Sugarizer 1.6.0 (changelog) using Sugarizer Server 1.4.0 (changelog) with URL box/sugarizer (using MongoDB 3.0 or 4.4 for older CPU’s, and optionally MongoDB 5.0/6.0 for modern CPU’s) _{PR #3099 PR #3241 PR #3380}
• Minetest 5.3.0+ is like Minecraft, but open source. _{PR #3426}
• Node-RED 3.0.2+ (changelog, docs) with URL box/nodered _{PR #3248}
• AzuraCast 0.17.4+ (changelog, docs) for radio-style MP3 streaming, with URL box:12080 _{PR #2946 PR #3384}
• Gitea 1.17.3+ (changelog, blog), lightweight self-hosted “GitHub” version control system, to learn to code collaboratively, with URL box/gitea _{PR #3326}
• Asterisk 19 and FreePBX 16 telephony server (IIAB doc) with URL box/freepbx (NGINX) or box:83/freepbox (Apache) _{PR #3229}
• Lokole 0.8.2 for rural/community email, with URL box/lokole _{PR ascoderu/lokole#593 PR #3276}
• Node.js 18 (changelog) across all apps _{PR #3186}
• PHP 8.1 support, for OS’s like Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, Mint 21 and Debian 12 _{PR #2832 PR #3382}
• phpMyAdmin 5.2.0 (changelog) for remote administration of MySQL _{PR #3218}
• ansible-core 2.14 as implemented by scripts/ansible _{PR #3418}
• “Power Off” button is properly concealed for schools that do not want disruption _#3109

Known Issues

• JupyterHub and Caliber-Web require wheels / cryptography (and Rust >=1.48.0) which are currently missing from 32-bit Raspberry Pi OS, as of 2022-11-10: PR #3421 PR #3422
• The sudo iiab-network command doesn’t cleanly recognize Wi-Fi routers (or Access Points) that you attach to IIAB with an Ethernet cable, with recent OS’s like Ubuntu 22.04. Manual workarounds can help: #3330 #3385 (comment)
• Lokole (rural/offline email) needs to be installed “twice” as explained at: #2833 (comment). Lokole’s requirements.txt file needs to be updated upstream (ascoderu/lokole#585), so in the meantime IIAB has implemented a temporary workaround patch (PR #3149). Progress is coming, likely in Q4 2022: PR ascoderu/lokole#593 PR #3276
• A few residual issues may remain at: https://github.com/iiab/iiab/milestone/8