Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Internet in a Box

internet-in-a-box.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 146 posts

Re: Internet in a Box

#131

Post by [deleted] »

mdorazio wrote: post #88
brador wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely an old android smartphone can do all this better than a hard to replace/repair UNIX "internet-in-a-box"? Old Android phone: 1. Has screen - (strong, tested, replaceable). 2. All the Android apps. 3. Wifi hotspot functionality + FTP + server hotspot. 4. MicroSD slot for massive and switchable data store. 5. Solar powerable, with removable and replaceable battery. 6. Touch friendly, kid friendly, low IQ requirem…

I think you're misunderstanding the point of this. It's not meant to be a device that people directly interact with. It's meant to be a local server that anyone nearby with a wi-fi connection can tap into regardless of broader internet availability. In that way it's likely to last much longer since it can be placed somewhere safe and not run the risk of being stolen/fought over/dropped/smashed/etc. and the end point…

[deleted]

Re: Internet in a Box

#132

Post by sokoloff »

squarefoot wrote: post #102
ivansavz wrote: post #56

To clarify, the "box" is any UNIX computer (very well suited for Raspberry PI devices, since the wifi can act as a hotspot), and the "internet" consists of all the best FOSS apps and open content that get served from localhost, see full list here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IIAB/FAQ#What_services_.28IIAB_app... The use case is to make apps/content/tools normally requiring internet accessed work offline (either on loca…

It could also be made with ultra cheap repurposed routers such as the old TP-Link TL-MR3020 or similar ones, whose hardware is really limited for doing anything serious but still can run older OpenWRT versions. All it needs is to activate a file sharing service and stick an USB drive to be shared with the usual protocols. I mention it because I've found some at flea markets for 5 to 10 Euros. Actually a possibly bett…

ESP32 (and even ESP8266) can run a webserver and serve files from flash. It’s not obvious to me that they’d be so much better than a Raspberry Pi, which is < 10W and likely averages ~5W, which is on the order of magnitude of a single hard drive, and obviously much easier to port Linux apps to.

Re: Internet in a Box

#133

Post by _carbyau_ »

brador wrote: post #81
ivansavz wrote: post #56

To clarify, the "box" is any UNIX computer (very well suited for Raspberry PI devices, since the wifi can act as a hotspot), and the "internet" consists of all the best FOSS apps and open content that get served from localhost, see full list here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IIAB/FAQ#What_services_.28IIAB_app... The use case is to make apps/content/tools normally requiring internet accessed work offline (either on loca…

Surely an old android smartphone can do all this better than a hard to replace/repair UNIX "internet-in-a-box"? Old Android phone: 1. Has screen - (strong, tested, replaceable). 2. All the Android apps. 3. Wifi hotspot functionality + FTP + server hotspot. 4. MicroSD slot for massive and switchable data store. 5. Solar powerable, with removable and replaceable battery. 6. Touch friendly, kid friendly, low IQ requirem…

Not sure that a few of your points are relevant for a large part of the intended operation but I do like the idea of using old Android hardware though!

The idea is to have a low power server for anyone to interact with over the wifi.

If you could grab an old android phone, install IIAB app, configure as desired then put where you want - this would allow so many more non-technically savvy people to be able to build/deploy it.

Depending on the phone it also could be easy to ruggedise with a case or maybe the phone itself might have waterproof ratings too.

Re: Internet in a Box

#135

Post by ClumsyPilot »

squarefoot wrote: post #102
ivansavz wrote: post #56

To clarify, the "box" is any UNIX computer (very well suited for Raspberry PI devices, since the wifi can act as a hotspot), and the "internet" consists of all the best FOSS apps and open content that get served from localhost, see full list here: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/IIAB/FAQ#What_services_.28IIAB_app... The use case is to make apps/content/tools normally requiring internet accessed work offline (either on loca…

It could also be made with ultra cheap repurposed routers such as the old TP-Link TL-MR3020 or similar ones, whose hardware is really limited for doing anything serious but still can run older OpenWRT versions. All it needs is to activate a file sharing service and stick an USB drive to be shared with the usual protocols. I mention it because I've found some at flea markets for 5 to 10 Euros. Actually a possibly bett…

You want a real CPU and storage to serve media files at a good performance, ESP is far too limited, it couldn't even fit a photograph in RAM and its network stack is very slow. Its probably possible, but not worthwhile

Re: Internet in a Box

#136

Post by nucleardog »

sokoloff wrote: post #132
squarefoot wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also be made with ultra cheap repurposed routers such as the old TP-Link TL-MR3020 or similar ones, whose hardware is really limited for doing anything serious but still can run older OpenWRT versions. All it needs is to activate a file sharing service and stick an USB drive to be shared with the usual protocols. I mention it because I've found some at flea markets for 5 to 10 Euros. Actually a possibly bett…

ESP32 (and even ESP8266) can run a webserver and serve files from flash. It’s not obvious to me that they’d be so much better than a Raspberry Pi, which is < 10W and likely averages ~5W, which is on the order of magnitude of a single hard drive, and obviously much easier to port Linux apps to.

Yeah, I don't know how useful it would be for this specific application just due to the architecture differences. Just for a off-the-grid file share, a ESP32 with a SD card wired up to it is still a lot less power hungry than the Raspberry Pi.

Even under full load with the radios powered up, you're looking at like 0.75W, and when you're not actively transferring anything you can go into any of the various sleep modes and hit 0.05W (modem sleep), 0.0025W (light sleep) or 0.00003W (deep sleep). That's an order of magnitude difference versus a Raspberry Pi. You can easily power that esp32 pretty much indefinitely with like... a 4x6in PV panel.

It's a fun thought experiment on where you could toss a little 4x6 inch panel that has wifi and a 32GB microsd card you can access via wifi or something. But yeah, doesn't really make much sense to me in this use case.

Re: Internet in a Box

#137

Post by ivansavz »

benkaiser wrote: post #128

How do you fit a full wikipedia in 23 languages with images on a 32gb card? +1000 videos?

You're definitely not the videos on an sdcard, and even the text-only (nopic) ZIM file is 43G, see the line "Wikipedia (English) en 2021-01 all nopic" on this page https://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Content_in_all_languages So you'll need at least a 64G card.

If you want 23+ languages + videos simultaneously you'll need to setup an external drive with larger capacity.

Re: Internet in a Box

#138

Post by aaron695 »

Ensorceled wrote: post #126
aaron695 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the medical database called? They have a lot of flat garbage that if you really want you can just put on your phone, I can see those. A database (For Africa as you mention) is a big deal, it's queryable store of info. It's rare to see these open source (or CC) Does it use MySql? MSAccess? How hard is it to set up? I don't think they will have any. Databases need to be updated, it's easier to add 4G if they ar…

Are you arguing with me or or the article? I'm not a doctor, I can't review the databases they include. Have you read the article? It has links.

The article makes zero claim that it includes medical databases or any databases I can find.

https://www.google.com/search?q=database+site%3Ainternet-in-...

This is why I want to know the name so I understand what you think IIAB does.

You seem to think these communities can skip the internet development of the Developed West which was - Academia -> Porn -> Shopping -> Illegal Movies -> Legal streaming movies-> Getting close to formal education

But I'm not getting this leap you think it can do.

Re: Internet in a Box

#139

Post by sgt »

Scoundreller wrote: post #123
sgt wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think a smart phone lasts 10 years in the hands of poor people, you are extremely optimistic. From what I can tell, even here in South Africa's townships they are using fairly new Samsung, Huawei etc smart phones (always with a broken screen - this happens without exception), albeit cheap ones. Even my gardener has a Samsung 10 something. Not entirely sure how he can afford it, but I suspect he borrowed a lot…

> always with a broken screen - this happens without exception Are the devices super-low end? Users underestimate how sensitive they are to breakage? Regularly thrown? Broken units that are usable end up there for export or?

In such places, everything has a tough life. Possessions are not taken care of very well, due to a number of reasons. Phones are regularly dropped. If you are lucky enough to own a car, it will be full of dents within 3 months.

Re: Internet in a Box

#140

Post by scruffyherder »

jimmar wrote: post #103

Who first coined "Internet in a box?" When I saw the title, I thought back fondly to 1994 when my dad came home with a package of software called "Internet in a box" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBox .

It was some repackage of Netscape and plugins and some dialup from mid 90s.

I remember the name as it was so ludicrous to think the internet fit in a box. Meanwhile a decade of usenet is only 10gb.

Post reply on HN