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The manual for Bibliotecha https://manual.bibliotecha.info
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Bibliotecha Manual

Bibliotecha - Digital books need libraries too

Bibliotecha is a framework to facilitate the local distribution of digital publications within a small community. It relies on a microcomputer running open-source software to serve books over a local wifi hotspot. Using the browser to connect to the library one can retrieve or donate texts. Bibliotecha proposes an alternative model of distribution of digital texts that allows specific communities to form and share their own collections.

[TOC]

Introduction

Welcome to the Bibliotecha manual! This guide serves as a human-friendly document to setting up an offline-first local library for you and your community.

Prerequisites

Bibliotecha is made specifically for use on the cheap and widely accessible Raspberry Pi single board computer and Debian based [Raspbian] operating system.

You should follow the [official setup documetation] on the Raspberry Pi website in order to get your board up and running. You will need it to have access to the internet in order to download the necessary packages as well as access to the command-line.

The current latest Raspberry Pi 3 B+ model is recommended. This model is chosen because it offers a built-in wireless card for convenient networking and a sufficient memory allowance of 1GB. It is possible to use other models of board but they should at least provide these guarantees.

[Raspbian Buster] is the current latest recommended version of the standard Raspberry Pi operating system. Etcher is a useful and simple tool for flashing the operationg system onto the SD card which you will plug into your Raspberry Pi.

Pre-installation

Before getting started, we need to perform some preparatory steps. These steps must be completed successfully before moving on with the rest of the guide. You should run the following commands at the command-line interface of your Raspberry Pi.

Firstly, we switch our user to the root account:

$ sudo -i

We then perform the initial system update and upgrade:

$ apt update
$ apt upgrade

We should then perform a number of steps within the raspi-config tool:

$ raspi-config

  • Change the user password

    • Choose the Change User Password option.
    • It is important to configure your Raspberry Pi with a secure passphrase. A diceware passphrase is a recommended approach for choosing a sufficiently strong passphrase.

  • Choose a hostname

    • Follow the Network Options > Hostname options.
    • The hostname will be the name that identifies the Raspberry Pi on the local network.

  • Configure predictable network interfaces

    • Follow the Network Options > Network interface names options.
    • It is important to enable predictable network interface names so that the automatic installation script can detect which network interfaces are in use.

  • Configure the localisation

    • Follow the Localisation Options > Change Locale options.
    • It is recommended to ensure that the en_GB.UTF-8 UTF-8 locale is selected. This is the default. Once this is selected, select <Ok> on the two following dialogs to generate the locale.

  • Expand the SD card partition

    • Follow the Advanced Options > Expand filesystem options.
    • This allows more space on the SD card to be used. This is important for when you will start to place more and more digital books in your Bibliotecha.

The Raspi-config interface then ask you to restart the Raspberry Pi which you should do. If not, you can also run this from the command-line:

$ reboot

Remember, you will need to use your new user passphrase to access the Raspberry Pi after rebooting it. Make sure you store this passphrase somewhere safe!

Automated installation

Once you've completed all the previous steps, it is time to run the automatic installation. This script will install and configure all the necessary moving parts of Bibliotecha.

If you're interested in doing this process manually (for the purpose of learning, for example), a Manual installation guide is provided.

$ sudo -i
$ curl https://git.vvvvvvaria.org/varia/bibliotecha-install/raw/branch/master/bibliotecha.sh | bash

Post-installation

After rebooting, there should be a Wifi hotspot available with the name Bibliotecha. This Wifi access point is being served from the Raspberry Pi. You should be able to connect to this Wifi. It is not password protected.

Once connected you should be directed to the so-called "captive protal" of the Bibliotecha where it explains how to enter the library and use it. The library should be available at http://bibliotecha.library.

Troubleshooting

  • TODO

Manual installation

  • TODO