Announcing an E-Book about FreedomBox

Posted 2019-09-20

We are pleased to announce a community-driven effort years in the making: the "FreedomBox for Communities" free e-book has been published to the Wikibooks platform. This e-book was written to teach users how to set up their own community-wide implementation of FreedomBox.

The FreedomBox server system is designed for home users who want to host services for themselves and their families and friends. But FreedomBox is technically neutral to setting and scale: it could also be used in larger community settings, like villages, hospitals, and law firms. Indeed, FreedomBox is already being used in villages in rural India.

FreedomBox is a good option for communities who want to run their own servers without dealing with complicated setup or hiring experts. This e-book was written to guide those communities in building their FreedomBox implementations. Though large communities may require hardware more powerful than our recommended single-board computers, the FreedomBox software is compatible with countless high-power hardware models because it is a Debian Pure Blend. Moreover, FreedomBox offers streamlined server administration and automatic security updates, which makes it a good option for communities who cannot afford to hire an expert to build a local network from scratch. In advanced use cases, the FreedomBox system could even be used to provide a Wi-Fi network.

The free e-book, "FreedomBox for Communities," teaches you how to run a FreedomBox in a setting with several users. It was largely written by FreedomBox contributors who have built Wi-Fi networks with free Internet connectivity in rural India.

Contents of the E-Book

The e-book is divided into six chapters:

  1. About This Book
  2. Introduction to FreedomBox
  3. FreedomBox Setup
  4. Network Setup
    1. Network Configuration
    2. Internet connectivity using a Point-to-Point Wireless Link
    3. Internet connectivity using an ADSL Modem
    4. Wi-Fi Towers
    5. Wi-Fi Roaming
    6. Performance Measurement
  5. Services Setup
    1. Messaging and VOIP
    2. Media Streaming
    3. Digital Library
    4. Offline Wikipedia
    5. Wiki
    6. More Use Cases (Social Network, Microblogging, Discussion Board)
  6. Maintenance
    1. Remote Connection
    2. Monitoring Client
    3. Monitoring Server
    4. Maintenance Team
    5. Building Disk Images
    6. Troubleshooting Guide

Contribute to the E-Book

The core content of this e-book is complete. But, like other collaboratively written works, it is a work in progress and still welcomes contributions. To contribute to the e-book, simply visit the e-book's website and click on the "Edit" tab; account registration is optional.

Thanks

We thank the contributors who wrote this e-book! You can find a list of contributors here.