FreedomBox-0.3

Mon, 02 Feb 2015 19:33:47 +0000

FreedomBox v0.3 Released!

January 21, 2015

Hi folks, I'm proud to announce that FreedomBox version 0.3 has been released! This release comes ten months after the previous, 0.2 release.

The FreedomBox version 0.3 is available here:

http://ftp.skolelinux.org/pub/freedombox/0.3/

Before using, you should verify the image's signature, see https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Download for further instructions:

$ gpg --keyserver hkp://pool.sks-keyservers.net --recv-keys 0x36C361440C9BC971

$ gpg --fingerprint 0x36C361440C9BC971

pub   4096R/0C9BC971 2011-11-12
      Key fingerprint = BCBE BD57 A11F 70B2 3782
                        BC57 36C3 6144 0C9B C971
uid                  Sunil Mohan Adapa <sunil@...>
sub   4096R/4C1D4B57 2011-11-12

$ gpg --verify freedombox-unstable_2015-01-15_beaglebone-armhf-card.tar.bz2.sig freedombox-unstable_2015-01-15_beaglebone-armhf-card.tar.bz2

(Replace the file names with the version you download.)

Thanks to the many folks who helped put this release together and especially Sunil and Petter who are regularly building and publishing updated images.

More information on this release is available on the wiki:

https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/ReleaseNotes

Major FreedomBox 0.3 Changes:

Add BeagleBone support. We now have images for BeagleBone, RaspberryPi, VirtualBox i386/amd64, and DreamPlug.

Ability to enable and use Tor Hidden Services. Works with Ejabberd/JWChat and ownCloud services.

Enable Tor obfsproxy with scramblesuit.

Drop well-known root password (an account with sudo capabilities still exists for now but will be removed soon).

Switch to unstable as suite of choice for easier development.

Newer images are built with systemd by default (due to Debian change).

Install and operate firewall automatically (uses firewalld).

Major restructuring of Plinth UI using Python3, Django web development framework and Bootstrap3. Code quality is much better and UI is more polished.

Introduced packaging framework in Plinth UI for on-demand application installation.

Documentation updates.

Many bug fixes and cleanups.

Unfortunately, some known issues do exist:

ownCloud requires removing /etc/owncloud/config.php after installation for Plinth to enable it properly.

However, other known issues have already been fixed upstream:

etckeeper commit doesn't work during first-run.

Wi-Fi AP isn't automatically available on Dreamplug. The interface needs to be created manually.

Please discuss, test, and enjoy. Please also join us on the mailing list, IRC, or on the monthly progress calls:

List: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/

IRC: irc://irc.debian.org/freedombox

Calls: https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/ProgressCalls

Happy hacking, Nick