Blog

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2015-02-11

Video: installing ownCloud 8 on UBOS with TLS

Our friends at ownCloud released their version 8 the day before we pushed out UBOS beta 2. We managed to include it at the last minute, and here is a video that shows how easy it is to install ownCloud on UBOS.

Including virtual host setup, SSL/TLS setup, and using Bonjour/mDNS, it only takes a single command and about a minute!
2015-02-09

UBOS Beta 2 is here!
We’re proud to announce that UBOS is now available in its second beta release.

You can run UBOS:
- on standard PCs, as their primary operating system
- on standard PCs and Macs, in VirtualBox
- on your Raspberry Pi Model B and Model B+.
Highlights
- Many bug fixes and reliability improvements from beta 1, as to be expected.
- UBOS has an installer that makes it easy to install UBOS on a new computer. Download the the image for a bootstick, boot in the boot stick and run sudo ubos-install /dev/sda to install UBOS on your first hard drive. RAID1 is also no problem, simply say sudo ubos-install /dev/sda /dev/sdb. More options are available.
- UBOS now makes it just as easy to create TLS-secured websites as it is to create non-secure ones. Just say sudo ubos-admin createsite --tls --selfsigned. You can also bring an official certificate.
- Hosts running UBOS now advertise themselves on the local network using mDNS/zeroconf. This solves the problem of “but what IP address does my box have”? Look for ubos-pc.local, ubos-raspberry-pi.local etc. on your local network.
- Many improvements that make packaging and testing apps for UBOS easier and more reliable.
Apps

Owncloud: Your Cloud, Your Data, Your Way!
Upgraded from 7.0.x to 8.0.0.

Known: Publishing Platform for Everyone
Upgraded from 0.6.4 to 0.7.1

Wordpress: Blog tools, publishing platform, and CMS
Upgraded from 4.0 to 4.1

Jenkins, the continuous integration app we use to build UBOS itself on UBOS.
Upgraded from 1.580.1 to 1.580.3

Mediawiki: The wiki that Wikipedia runs on
Upgraded from 1.23.x to 1.24

Selfoss: The multipurpose RSS reader, live stream, mashup, aggregation web application
Kept at same version.

Shaarli: Your Own URL Shortener
Kept at same version.

For more details, refer to the ~~release notes~~.
2015-02-03

UBOS featured in Linux Journal

In their February issue, Linux Journal has a long interview on UBOS with Johannes Ernst.

You’re the Boss with UBOS

The interview was conducted by Doc Searls who, other than being a Senior Editor there, is one of the original authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto, recently updated.

Here are some choice quotes:

DS: making it easy for muggles to set up their own fully independent personal home servers with little or no help from wizards.

DS: What's the end state of the "Internet of our own things"? Or at least a state to which Linux Journal readers can aspire—and weigh in with some code and product?

JE: As geeks, and as an industry, we have a choice to make here about how we'd like the Internet of Things to look ten years from now.

There's the "NEST way", which is totally closed devices 100% dependent on being tethered to some corporate overlord. Google in this case. Some people consider these beautiful-looking devices to be nothing else than surveillance devices first and thermostats second. I guess they have a point. In any case, we have no control whatsoever over their functioning and terms of service, nor what they do with our data.

And there's the user-owned, free/libre, "indie" way, where every device is—at least in principle—hackable. Where data stays home, or at least is only shared with anybody because the owner of the device decided that that is what they wanted to do. Where we can run the code we want on whatever device we buy or build. Where interoperability is not subject to whether some big companies love or hate each other this week.

Personally, I'm horrified at the first of these scenarios, and I know many other geeks are too, because all these great IoT projects keep popping up everywhere. The next step is to make this all reliable and maintainable enough that it's not just the geeks who can control their own homes. UBOS is one step in that direction, but many others are required. In fact, we might need a real barn-raising effort to together create an "Internet of our own things". Anybody up for that? I am!

LJ: Us too.

Since this interview was conducted, we’ve started calling these two architectures the “Indie IoT” vs. “Overlord IoT” architectures.
2015-01-14

THEIR things or OUR things? Talk on Indie IoT

Johannes Ernst, primary UBOS developer, will be giving a talk at next week’s “Internet of Things Silicon Valley” meeting titled:

THEIR things or OUR things?
Let’s build a more customer-centric, privacy-respecting "indie" IoT instead.

Update: Slides are now available (formats: PDF with notes Keynote)

This talk is focused on the big picture that makes technologies such as UBOS so important, here applied to the rapidly growing Internet of Things.

From the event description:

Imagine Google disables your account because your teenage son uploaded some copyrighted movies. Are you sure that when you feel cold later that day, you’ll still be able to turn up your Nest thermostat?

Imagine the company from which you bought your lights or door locks or window shades goes out of business and their cloud goes down. Does that mean you need to remodel your house?

Imagine you like to connect a Thing from company A to a Thing from company B, but they just sued each other over something. Do you really think that will work?

In this talk, we’ll first look at every IoT company's favorite strategy — lock their customers into their cloud — and the consequences this has for you and me. (Hint: they are not good.) Then, I’ll outline an alternate "indie IoT" architecture which doesn’t spy, doesn’t lock-in, and delivers more business opportunities and more customer value. It’s my goal with this talk to give you some ideas how the world could be better than mainstream thinking has it, and it’s my hope that you join the cause in making it so.
2015-01-14

Upcoming UBOS Meetups through May
The following UBOS / Indie Box meetups are coming up, generally on the second Monday each month:
- Monday, February 9, 2015 at 6:30pm, Hacker Dojo, Mountain View, CA
- Monday, March 9, 2015 at 6:30pm, Hacker Dojo, Mountain View, CA
- Monday, April 13, 2015 at 6:30pm, Hacker Dojo, Mountain View, CA
- Monday, May 11, 2015 at 6:30pm, Hacker Dojo, Mountain View, CA
2014-12-31

Meetup January 12, 6:30. Let’s run web apps on our Raspberry Pi’s
Register for this event on Monday, January 12, 6:30pm, at the [Hacker Dojo](http://hackerdojo.com/) in Mountain View, CA.

UBOS Beta 1 is here, and that means installing web apps on our Raspberry Pi’s has become as simple as executing a single command:
```
% sudo ubos-admin createsite
```
For this hands-on meetup, bring your Raspberry Pi’s, and we will get one or more web apps running on it. Your choices currently are:

• ownCloud – file sharing, calendaring, address book sharing

• Known – modern decentralized social media

• Wordpress – blogging and content management

• Mediawiki – the wiki that Wikipedia runs on

• Selfoss – RSS reader

• Shaarli – URL shortener and bookmarking app

What to bring (if you have it, it’s fine to come without):

• Raspberry Pi model B or B+ (Ethernet). Alternatively bring a PC that can boot from a USB stick.

• Suitable SD Card or Micro SD Card that works with your Raspberry Pi. 4G minimum.

• Keyboard and monitor, plus cables and power supply, so you can see what your Raspberry Pi is doing.

• Enthusiasm :-)

Questions? Contact me through the Meetup event page.
2014-12-22

Proud to announce: the first 500 downloads

I’m happy to announce that as of today, UBOS has been successfully downloaded more than five hundred times!

Trying out the beta of an operating system is not for the faint of heart: you need a spare computer to install it on, or at least be familiar with virtualization. Which means geeks only with some time. So I’m quite impressed by 500 downloads in the short time that UBOS has been available.

Here’s the breakdown by platform:

and here by top-level domain:

A great Christmas present. Happy Holidays!!

P.S. There were many more partial downloads, which is not surprising given the size of the image files.
2014-12-05

UBOS Lightening talk, Mountain View, CA, Dec 5, 2014, 5:30pm

There will be a lightening talk on UBOS at the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, CA, tonight at 5:30pm. Sorry for the late notice.

It is open to the general public. You don’t need to be a Dojo member to attend. Directions are here.
2014-11-24

UBOS Beta 1 is now available!
We’re proud to announce that UBOS is now available in a first beta release.

You can run UBOS:
- on standard PCs, as their primary operating system
- on standard PCs and Macs, in VirtualBox
- on your Raspberry Pi Model B and Model B+.
The following apps are available and have been tested on all platforms:

Owncloud: Your Cloud, Your Data, Your Way!
Install with sudo ubos-admin createsite, specify app owncloud

Known: Publishing Platform for Everyone
Install with sudo ubos-admin createsite, specify app idno

Wordpress: Blog tools, publishing platform, and CMS
Install with sudo ubos-admin createsite, specify app wordpress

Mediawiki: The wiki that Wikipedia runs on
Install with sudo ubos-admin createsite, specify app mediawiki

Selfoss: The new multipurpose rss reader, live stream, mashup, aggregation web application
Install with sudo ubos-admin createsite, specify app selfoss

Shaarli: Your Own URL Shortener
Install with sudo ubos-admin createsite, specify app shaarli

and also Jenkins, the continuous integration app we use to build UBOS itself on UBOS.
Install with sudo ubos-admin createsite, specify app jenkins.

Some apps already have some accessories, which you may or may not want to install:
- Wordpress plugins: wordpress-plugin-semantic-linkbacks, wordpress-plugin-social and wordpress-plugin-webmention for Indie Web support;
- Mediawiki extension: mediawiki-ext-confirmaccount to cut down on wiki spam;
- Jenkins plugins: jenkins-plugin-git, jenkins-plugin-git-client, and jenkins-plugin-scm-api for Git integration.
The following features should work on all platforms:
- Single-command deployment of web apps, with automatic database provisioniong, webserver configuration, etc.
- Multiple virtual hosts on the same host. For example, you can run sites http://home.example.com/ and http://personal.example.net/ on the same host.
- Multiple apps on the same virtual host. For example, you can run Wordpress at http://example.com/blog and Mediawiki at http://example.com/wiki
- Multiple instances of the same app on the same host. For example, you can run three instances of Wordpress on the same host, such as at http://example.com, http://example.net/blog and http://example.net/news
- Single-command undeployment
- Single-command full system upgrade which backs up all your data, upgrades all code from the operating system over middleware to applications, runs whatever data migrations might be necessary, and redeploys all your apps.
- Single-command backup and restore.
and a few other things, see the documentation section of this site.

This is a beta, so expect bugs (~~release notes~~). We run several production sites on it already, but we don’t recommend (yet) that you do.
2014-10-22

Postscapes.com article on UBOS and Indie Box

Postscapes published the first article about UBOS and the Indie Box Project titled:

“Personal server software UBOS lets users run their own clouds, control their own data”.

Thanks, Ted Burnham!

Highlights

Apps