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+ <item>
+ <title>Recipe to test the Freedombox project on amd64 or Raspberry Pi</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Recipe_to_test_the_Freedombox_project_on_amd64_or_Raspberry_Pi.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Tue, 10 Sep 2013 14:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>I was introduced to the
+<a href="http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/">Freedombox project</a>
+in 2010, when Eben Moglen presented his vision about serving the need
+of non-technical people to keep their personal information private and
+within the legal protection of their own homes. The idea is to give
+people back the power over their network and machines, and return
+Internet back to its intended peer-to-peer architecture. Instead of
+depending on a central service, the Freedombox will give everyone
+control over their own basic infrastructure.</p>
+
+<p>I've intended to join the effort since then, but other tasks have
+taken priority. But this summers nasty news about the misuse of trust
+and privilege exercised by the "western" intelligence gathering
+communities increased my eagerness to contribute to a point where I
+actually started working on the project a while back.</p>
+
+<p>The <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/freedombox/">initial
+Debian initiative</a> based on the vision from Eben Moglen, is to
+create a simple and cheap Debian based appliance that anyone can hook
+up in their home and get access to secure and private services and
+communication. The initial deployment platform have been the
+<a href="http://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/t-dreamplugdetails.aspx">Dreamplug</a>,
+which is a piece of hardware I do not own. So to be able to test what
+the current Freedombox setup, I had to come up with a way to install
+it on some hardware I do got access to. I have rewritten the
+<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedom-maker">freedom-maker</a>
+image build framework to use .deb packages instead of only copying
+setup into the boot images, and thanks to this rewrite I am able to
+set up any machine supported by Debian Wheezy as a Freedombox, using
+the previously mentioned deb (and a few support debs for packages
+missing in Debian).</p>
+
+<p>The current Freedombox setup consist of a set of bootstrapping
+scripts
+(<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/freedombox-setup">freedombox-setup</a>),
+and a administrative web interface
+(<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/Plinth">plinth</a> + exmachina +
+withsqlite), as well as a privacy enhancing proxy based on
+<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/privoxy">privoxy</a>
+(freedombox-privoxy). There is also a web/javascript based XMPP
+client (<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/jwchat">jwchat</a>)
+trying (unsuccessfully so far) to talk to the XMPP server
+(<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/ejabberd">ejabberd</a>). The
+web interface is pluggable, and the goal is to use it to enable OpenID
+services, mesh network connectivity, use of TOR, etc, etc. Not much of
+this is really working yet, see
+<a href="https://github.com/NickDaly/freedombox-todos/blob/master/TODO">the
+project TODO</a> for links to GIT repositories. Most of the code is
+on github at the moment. The HTTP proxy is operational out of the
+box, and the admin web interface can be used to add/remove plinth
+users. I've not been able to do anything else with it so far, but
+know there are several branches spread around github and other places
+with lots of half baked features.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, if you want to have a look at the current stat, the
+following recipes should work to give you a test machine to poke
+at.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Debian Wheezy amd64</strong></p>
+
+<ol>
+
+<li>Fetch normal Debian Wheezy installation ISO.</li>
+<li>Boot from it, either as CD or USB stick.</li>
+<li><p>Press [tab] on the boot prompt and add this as a boot argument
+to the Debian installer:<p>
+<pre>url=http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-wheezy.dat</pre></li>
+
+<li>Answer the few language/region/password questions and pick disk to
+install on.</li>
+
+<li>When the installation is finished and the machine have rebooted a
+few times, your Freedombox is ready for testing.</li>
+
+</ol>
+
+<p><strong>Raspberry Pi Raspbian</strong></p>
+
+<ol>
+
+<li>Fetch a Raspbian SD card image, create SD card.</li>
+<li>Boot from SD card, extend file system to fill the card completely.</li>
+<li><p>Log in and add this to /etc/sources.list:</p>
+<pre>
+deb http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox wheezy main
+</pre></li>
+<li><p>Run this as root:</p>
+<pre>
+wget -O - http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/BE1A583D.asc | \
+ apt-key add -
+apt-get update
+apt-get install freedombox-setup
+/usr/lib/freedombox/setup
+</pre></li>
+<li>Reboot into your freshly created Freedombox.</li>
+
+</ol>
+
+<p>You can test it on other architectures too, but because the
+freedombox-privoxy package is binary, it will only work as intended on
+the architectures where I have had time to build the binary and put it
+in my APT repository. But do not let this stop you. It is only a
+short "<tt>apt-get source -b freedombox-privoxy</tt>" away. :)</p>
+
+<p>Note that by default Freedombox is a DHCP server on the
+192.168.1.0/24 subnet, so if this is your subnet be careful and turn
+off the DHCP server by running "<tt>update-rc.d isc-dhcp-server
+disable</tt>" as root.</p>
+
+<p>Please let me know if this work for you, or if you have any
+problems. We gather on the IRC channel
+<a href="irc://irc.debian.org:6667/%23freedombox">#freedombox</a> on
+irc.debian.org and the
+<a href="http://lists.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/freedombox-discuss">project
+mailing list</a>.</p>
+
+<p>Once you get your freedombox operational, you can visit
+<tt>http://your-host-name:8001/</tt> to see the state of the plint
+welcome screen (dead end - do not be surprised if you are unable to
+get past it), and next visit <tt>http://your-host-name:8001/help/</tt>
+to look at the rest of plinth. The default user is 'admin' and the
+default password is 'secret'.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
<item>
<title>Datalagringsdirektivet gjør at Oslo Høyre og Arbeiderparti ikke får min stemme i år</title>
<link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Datalagringsdirektivet_gj_r_at_Oslo_H_yre_og_Arbeiderparti_ikke_f_r_min_stemme_i__r.html</link>
</description>
</item>
- <item>
- <title>The Thinkpad is dead, long live the Thinkpad X230</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_Thinkpad_is_dead__long_live_the_Thinkpad_X230.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 4 Jul 2013 09:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>Half a year ago, I reported that I had to find a replacement for my
-trusty old Thinkpad X41. Unfortunately I did not have much time to
-spend on it, but today the replacement finally arrived. I ended up
-picking a <a href="http://www.linlap.com/lenovo_thinkpad_x230">Thinkpad
-X230</a> with SSD disk (NZDAJMN). I first test installed Debian Edu
-Wheezy as a roaming workstation, and it worked flawlessly. As I write
-this, it is installing what I hope will be a more final installation,
-with a encrypted hard drive to ensure any dope head stealing it end up
-with an expencive door stop.</p>
-
-<p>I had a hard time trying to track down a good laptop, as my most
-important requirements (robust and with a good keyboard) are never
-listed in the feature list. But I did get good help from the search
-feature at <ahref="http://www.prisjakt.no/">Prisjakt</a>, which
-allowed me to limit the list of interesting laptops based on my other
-requirements. A bit surprising that SSD disk are not disks, so I had
-to drop number of disks from my search parameters.</p>
-
-<p>I am not quite convinced about the keyboard, as it is significantly
-wider than my old keyboard, and I have to stretch my hand a lot more
-to reach the edges. But the key response is fairly good and the
-individual key shape is fairly easy to handle, so I hope I will get
-used to it. My old X40 was starting to fail, and I really needed a
-new laptop now. :)</p>
-
-<p>I look forward to figuring out how to turn off the touch pad.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
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