[RESOLVED] The 1-2-3 Basics to Set up a Kolibri Demo

Support Hardware
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I’m working on a project to add a large body of content to Kolibri and have an opportunity to do a demo/workshop at an international education conference.

I want to provide an experience of seeing Kolibri as a user and am thinking the best approach is to set up a Raspberry Pi (first timer), maybe for 10, 20 people. Can I get recommendations for hardware (is a Pi 3 fine?), what else needed (SD card and power supply?), and that setting up is as easy as the docs indicate?

Thanks in advance.

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Hi @cogdog,

Sounds like a fantastic opportunity to showcase Kolibri! I am sharing some information from @jredrejo:

  • Yes, the setup is as easy as the docs say (noting that we now have v0.17.2 available, so please ignore where it says 0.16) :grinning:
  • However, a Pi3 will likely not be able to support 20 users concurrently, because 1 Gb of RAM is not enough for that many. 10 seems more realistic.
  • Performance will depend a lot on the quality of the SD card.
  • For a demo, a SD card is good enough, for implementation we recommend not relying on a SD card as they tend to fail with usage quite quickly. All the permanent RPi installations Jose has tested are using an attached SSD usb disk. 250 Gb or 125 Gb SSD usb disks cost $25 and can be used for years without problems.

We’ve previously prepared some additional documentation here that I’ll be updating with Jose’s notes.

Once you test it out, we’d love to hear any feedback about your experience!

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Thanks Laura! I have not purchased my Pi yet, so I will just get a 4 instead. Looking forward to trying this out.

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Thanks again @laura just ordered a Pi4 starter kit, 4GB RAM and 32Gb card. This is just a first demo.

My idea is to have participants join the Pi’s network, so they are not able to use outside internet.

Eager to set up!

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Hi @cogdog,

I’ve setup a online version of Kolibri on my demo site - One Laptop per School - HOME - I’ve installed most of the modules, maybe you would like to poke around on there and see what modules you would like to install offline on your Pi

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Hi @laura – progress made but I need help.

It took me a while to get a 4GB Pi 4. The kit I ordered from Amazon a month ago got lost in shipping. I was able to get one in a few days from Pishop.ca, and just set it up tonight with the default system.

Then I downloaded the Kolibri 0.17.2 image, and updated my SD card successfully with the Raspberry Imager.

As promised the install went through many stops, lots marked failure, but eventually I ended up at a command line prompt to login. The username pi and password described in the docs did not work, but I did get logged in using the username/password set with the Imager app.

Now I am staring at a command line prompt, not a Kolibri interface.

kolbri-not
kolbri-not1400×848 491 KB

I looked up the Debian docs, and entered kolibri start and got a few indicators that it was running and available at http://10.10.10.10 and http://127.0.0.1/ It had also created its own local wireless AP named “kolibri”

Now from my local devices I connect to the local wireless network running from the Pi-- http://10.10.10.10 results in refused connection and http://127.0.0.1/ gives me “It works, well, eh?”

I have either made a mistake or am missing a key step. I appreciate any help, as I leave in a week for a conference in Australia I was hoping to do a local demo on Nov 14.

Thanks for any suggestions.

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Thanks Claude- if I can get my device set up, I will poke around!

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Hello @cogdog
I don’t quite understand this part. As the link you passed says, the user is set to be pi when the image is configured. You must not change the username nor the password. If you used the rpi-imager tool to create the sd card, don’t add any customization or part of the configs will be broken.

If the wifi hotspot starts but kolibri does not, it looks like a mess with the username.

Regards
José

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Many thanks, José! I will re-flash the card with no added customization.

This is a first time for me trying an install, so I am a beginner.

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Update: Success, I am now looking at my Kolibri setup screen on the local network. I’m on my way.

I did have to reformat the SD card I had been trying earlier.

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