ElimuPi

The purpose of this project is to provide a DEAN digital classroom environment for educational project in Tanzania and Kenya. This includes providing full Android tablet support without the need of any direct internet connectivity.

Please visit https://www.dean.ngo/solutions/elimupi/ for more information.

ElimuPi-Connect

The ElimuPi now supports all the ElimuPi-Connect addon features without the need of an separate computing device.

• Internet service by using a 4G LTE USB Wifi AP dongle.
• Remote Support.
• Educational content updates.

Introduction

This version of the ElimuPi build supports:

• F-Droid an Android application store.
• Web pages for management of the system and content management (WordPress).
• WiKiPedia alike functions based on Kiwix.
• Kolibri learning system.
• Dynamic content addition through USB storage.
• Secured WiFi Access Point with SSID : elumi
• Wifi client that defaults connect to Wifi AP (dongle) SSID: dean-4g.
• Local DHCP, DNS.
• Scratch, a high-level block-based visual programming language.
• Moodle.
• Beamer support via onboard micro HDMI.
• OpenVPN connection for content updates.
• Transparent Proxy for logging.
• Connect Registration dashboard.

Installation

Prerequisites:

• PC or laptop with Linux, Windows with WSL or MacOS operating system installed.

• A Raspberry Pi model 4 or 5 with a wired TCP connection to LAN.

• A Micro SD-card class 10 > 8GB.

• Git installed.

• Ansible 2.10 > installed.

• ssh_askpass installed.

• Raspberry Pi Imager installed.

• Raspberry Pi OS Lite 64 bits image , Release date: November 19th 2024.

• Ansible vault password ( contact DEAN development)

Install Raspberry Pi OS

• Use Raspberry PI Imager to write the downloaded image to the SD-card using instructions at https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/getting-started.html#installing-the-operating-system.
• Insert the SD-card.
• Start Raspberry PI Imager.
• Under Raspberry Pi Device select No filtering.
• Under Operating system select Choose OS --> Raspberry PI OS other and select the downloaded image - Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit), A port of Debian Bookworm wiyh n Desktop Environment ( Compatible with PI 3/4/400/5 ), Release date: November 19th 2024.
• Under Storage and select the SD-card device.
• Select Advanced options --> Enable SSH --> Use password authentication.
• Set Username to: pi and Password to : elimupi and select SAVE.
• Select WRITE.

When the image has been successfully written insert the SD-card into the Raspberry Pi and boot the device connected to local LAN.

Build ElimuPi Image

Provision the ElimuPi software by running the ansible-play book against local Raspberry Pi and build Elimupi the image.

• Find the Pi's assigned IP address on your local LAN. ( via Wifi router or a nmap).
• Git clone this repo and cd elimupi/ansible directory of this repo.
• Adjust the current IP adresss of key : ansible_host in file inventory.yml to your Pi's local assigned IP address.
• Increment version release number variable, elimupi_release: in file ansible/group_vars/all/vars.yml if needed.
• Install Ansible collections:

ansible-galaxy collection install -r collections.yml

• Install Ansible roles.

ansible-galaxy install -r roles.yml

• Run playbook

ansible-playbook -i ./inventory.yml playbook-elimupi.yml --ask-vault-pass

The installation will take approximately 30-40 minutes to finish and there shouldn't be any errors.

Create ElimuPi image copy

• Create a image copy of the SD-card with the ElimuPi software installed using instructions at https://beebom.com/how-clone-raspberry-pi-sd-card-windows-linux-macos/
• Shrink cloned the image file (Linux Only) using PiShrink and the compression option -Za
• Name the image: ElimuPi_Image_-raspios-bookworm-arm64_lite_Release_<-Version->.img.xz e.g.

This should produce a xz compressed Elimupi image file.

The image file can than be directly written to other SD-cards using Raspberry Pi Imager selecting the image with Use Custom Operation System option.

Content Disk

The ElimuPi uses USB drive as a content disk for Kolibri and Kiwix Wiki etc.

To prepare a minimal content disk:

• USB 2.0 > Drive/Stick of at least 3GB.
• NTFS formatted having disklabel: Content.
• Download this zipfile, unzip it and copy the content onto USB drive.

Connecting to ElimuPi

• Connect your device via WiFi to SSID: elimu using passcode: 1234567890
• Point your browser to http://start.elimupi.online

Default users

The default username and passwords will be pi/elimupi unless noted differently.

User access

The end users can access the available resources after they are connected to the Wifi network.

The following links are provided to access the resources:

• Main interface - start.elimupi.online
• Kolibri - kolibri.elimupi.online
• Kiwix - wiki.elimupi.online
• Fdroid - fdroid.elimupi.online
• Files - files.elimupi.online
• Moodle - moodle.elimupi.online
• Admin - admin.elimupi.online
• Scratch - scratch.elimupi.online
• Connect Registration dashboard - registration.elimupi.online

After you finished the installation you need to visit registration.elimupi.online login with an admin account to register your device, so that it can synchronize with the central server."

Notes

NOTE1: This install is tested to work with Raspberry Pi OS Lite 64 bits image , Release date: November 19th 2024. on a Raspberry Pi model 4 and 5.