The Freedombox +project is working on providing the software and hardware to make +it easy for non-technical people to host their data and communication +at home, and being able to communicate with their friends and family +encrypted and away from prying eyes. It is still going strong, and +today a major mile stone was reached.
+ +Today, the last of the packages currently used by the project to +created the system images were accepted into Debian Unstable. It was +the freedombox-setup package, which is used to configure the images +during build and on the first boot. Now all one need to get going is +the build code from the freedom-maker git repository and packages from +Debian. And once the freedombox-setup package enter testing, we can +build everything directly from Debian. :)
+ +Some key packages used by Freedombox are +freedombox-setup, +plinth, +pagekite, +tor, +privoxy, +owncloud and +dnsmasq. There +are plans to integrate more packages into the setup. User +documentation is maintained on the Debian wiki. Please +check out +the manual and help us improve it.
+ +To test for yourself and create boot images with the FreedomBox +setup, run this on a Debian machine using a user with sudo rights to +become root:
+ ++sudo apt-get install git vmdebootstrap mercurial python-docutils \ + mktorrent extlinux virtualbox qemu-user-static binfmt-support \ + u-boot-tools +git clone http://anonscm.debian.org/git/freedombox/freedom-maker.git \ + freedom-maker +make -C freedom-maker dreamplug-image raspberry-image virtualbox-image ++ +
Root access is needed to run debootstrap and mount loopback +devices. See the README in the freedom-maker git repo for more +details on the build. If you do not want all three images, trim the +make line. Note that the virtualbox-image target is not really +virtualbox specific. It create a x86 image usable in kvm, qemu, +vmware and any other x86 virtual machine environment. You might need +the version of vmdebootstrap in Jessie to get the build working, as it +include fixes for a race condition with kpartx.
+ +If you instead want to install using a Debian CD and the preseed +method, boot a Debian Wheezy ISO and use this boot argument to load +the preseed values:
+ ++url=http://www.reinholdtsen.name/freedombox/preseed-jessie.dat ++ +
I have not tested it myself the last few weeks, so I do not know if +it still work.
+ +If you wonder how to help, one task you could look at is using +systemd as the boot system. It will become the default for Linux in +Jessie, so we need to make sure it is usable on the Freedombox. I did +a simple test a few weeks ago, and noticed dnsmasq failed to start +during boot when using systemd. I suspect there are other problems +too. :) To detect problems, there is a test suite included, which can +be run from the plinth web interface.
+ +Give it a go and let us know how it goes on the mailing list, and help +us get the new release published. :) Please join us on +IRC (#freedombox on +irc.debian.org) and +the +mailing list if you want to help make this vision come true.
+ +