DRAFT

Internet-in-a-Box (IIAB) 8.2 rolling releases are thoroughly tested — and can be installed today — anybody can build a beautiful digital library for their school, clinic or community:

  🍓 download.iiab.io 🍓

See our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ.IIAB.IO) and consider installing today!

Why not build your own LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA with a $35 Raspberry Pi 4 or $50 Raspberry Pi 5 ?

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!

Can you contribute a screencast or grassroots video to help Internet-in-a-Box teachers in all countries?

What’s New?

• IIAB lets you add YouTube and Vimeo videos (and local videos, e.g. from teachers’ phones) to your Calibre-Web learning library! _{PR #3694}
• Uploading your own local/community content to IIAB is now much easier! _{PR #3784}
• IIAB core software can be rapidly updated using the new iiab-update command. _{PR #3768}
• IIAB works with the latest 2024 OS’s like Raspberry Pi OS “Bookworm”, Debian 12 “Bookworm”, Linux Mint 22, and Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS! _#3662
• Kolibri Channels (and any Kolibri Channel subsets) should be selectable in advance, for faster installation of content (COMING SOON!) _{learningequality/kolibri#10384 PR iiab-admin-console#556}
• In 2024, the final release of IIAB 8.2 (GitHub Milestone, Roadmap Ideas) will build on IIAB 8.1. Please connect with your suggestions, and join us making this major release happen!

What’s Upgraded?

• Calibre-Web (upstream docs, 0.6.24+ upstream releases, IIAB commit log) allows you to build an e-book and audiobook library for your community or school. It’s being refined to allow you to add YouTube and Vimeo videos (and local videos, e.g. from teachers’ phones). Use it with customizable URLs like box/books, box/libros, box/livres _{PR #3503 PR #3694}
• Kolibri 0.17.3+ replaces KA Lite (changelog, blog, docs), fixing peer import of channels from “Local network or internet”, and adding new languages like Haitian Creole (Kreyòl ayisyen). IIAB now tries to install Kolibri with the PPA method, making it easy to upgrade using apt update etc. Use Kolibri with URL box/kolibri _{PR #3785}
• KA Lite (Khan Academy Lite) legacy option, still works on Debian 12 and Raspberry Pi OS! _{PR #3733}
• Kiwix 3.7.0 (changelog), based on libzim 9.1.0 [soon 9.2.3] (changelog) and libkiwix 13.1.0 [soon 14.0.0] (changelog), with URL box/kiwix _{PR #3600}
• Moodle 4.5.0+ LTS (announcement, technical announcement, release notes / changelog, release calendar, FAQ, docs) with URL box/moodle (NOTE that IIAB attempts to install the latest weekly pre-release of Moodle 5.0 if a bleeding-edge OS with PHP >= 8.4 is detected.) Moodle 5.0 ETA 2025-04-14. _{PR #3656 PR #3791}
• Nextcloud 30.0.2+ (changelog, release schedule, docs) requires PHP 8.1+. Nextcloud 31 is expected 2025-02-25. Use Nextcloud with URL box/nextcloud _{PR #3670}
• WordPress 6.7+ (6.7 field guide, 6.6 field guide, 6.5 field guide, 6.4 field guide, 6.3 field guide, 6.2 field guide, 6.1 field guide, 6.0 field guide). WordPress 6.8 is expected in Q1 or Q2 2025. With URL box/wordpress _{PR #3210}
• MediaWiki 1.42.3 (release notes, summary, changelog). 1.43 LTS ETA December 2024. With URL box/wiki _{PR #3760}
• Matomo 5.1.2+ (changelog, releases) is like Google Analytics, but emphasizes privacy and data ownership. With URL box/matomo _{PR #3460}
• JupyterHub 5.2.1+ (changelog) e.g. for data science students, with URL box/jupyterhub _{PR #3476}
• Sugarizer 1.8.0 (changelog) using Sugarizer Server 1.5.0 (changelog) with URL box/sugarizer (using MongoDB 5.0 on 64-bit ARM, and MongoDB 6.0 on x86_64) _{PR #3478 PR #3519 PR #3728}
• Minetest 5.10.0+ (changelog, releases) is like Minecraft, but open source! _{PR #3426}
• Node-RED 4.0.5+ (changelog, docs) with URL box/nodered _{PR #3248}
• AzuraCast 0.20.2+ (changelog, releases, docs) for radio-style MP3 streaming, with URL box:12080 _{PR #2946 PR #3384}
• Gitea 1.22.3+ (changelog, blog) lightweight self-hosted “GitHub” version control system, to learn to code collaboratively, with URL box/gitea _{PR #3744}
• Asterisk 21 and FreePBX 17 telephony server (IIAB guide) run on Debian 12 Bookworm (PHP 8.2) and Ubuntu 24.04 (PHP 8.3). The Bookworm version of 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS (PHP 8.2) will quite likely work too. With URL box/freepbx (NGINX) and/or box:83/freepbx (Apache) _{PR #3674 PR #3675}
• Transmission 4.0.6+ / 4.1.0-dev (changelog, commit log) overhauled BitTorrent infra for FAST content downloads, can be compiled live during IIAB install. _{PR #3690}
• Remote.It 5.4.0+ (desktop/mobile app download) to remotely support your IIAB — see also “How can I remotely manage my Internet-in-a-Box?” _{PR #3611}
• Node.js 22 (releases, changelog) support. Node.js 24 might be supported after it’s released 2025-04-22. _{PR #3738}
• PHP 8.3 support, for 2024 OS’s like Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. PHP 8.4 (expected 2024-11-21) will also work increasingly with most IIAB apps, in preparation for 2025 OS’s. _{PR #3656 PR #3791}
• phpMyAdmin 5.2.1 (changelog) for remote administration of MySQL _{PR #3474}
• ansible-core 2.18 (changelog, end-of-life schedule; 2.19 ETA Q2 2025) as implemented by scripts/ansible _{#3727 PR #3729}

Known Issues

• Problematic lines can appear at the bottom of /library/www/html/home/menu.json after a few hours, disabling your IIAB’s home page, until the IIAB is rebooted: #3487 #3602 #3781
• 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 24.04. Manual workarounds can help: #3330 #3385 (comment)
• A few residual issues may remain at: github.com/iiab/iiab/milestone/10