We’re working with World Possible, creators of RACHEL.
We created experimental software that installs RACHEL-Pi on an external USB drive (e.g. PiDrive). RACHEL is a system that delivers freely available software and content modules to places/regions with insufficient internet access. R-Pi is one of the main HW platforms and the RACHEL-Pi software turns the Pi + storage into a WiFi AP and web-server. RACHEL/RACHEL-Pi is produced by World Possible, a non-profit org. For more info: http://rachelfriends.org
Currently, RACHEL-Pi and RACHEL modules are implemented via SDcard (e.g. 32GB, 64GB, etc.) on R-Pi or on an embedded HDD in a storage router platform offered via World Possible. The RACHEL modules comprise 100’s of GB’s of files (e.g. the full Wikipedia database is offered in modules) and this makes the PiDrive system a good low-cost solution.
The experimental software we’re sharing here installs RACHEL-Pi onto a USB drive attached to the R-Pi. It’s implemented via our custom version of NOOBS OS installer and provides a dual-boot solution: (1) “Download” mode: desktop environment (Raspbian) enabling easy selection and download of RACHEL modules from the worldpossible.org repository and (2) “RACHEL-Pi” mode: web-server with WiFi AP to serve the downloaded modules to client devices without Internet.
The link below is a PDF with description, link to software and link to quick video stepping through the software installation and client setup.
Let me know if any questions, comments or problems.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Thanks.
