So last week I started my little geek project and after much ado it is now finished and our kafé has a pirate box with the potential to viraly spread ideas thoughts, documents freely.
The package arrived from iSupply.se within days with the tiny wireless router TL-mr3020. I was astonished that such a small thing could actually function as router, AP and file sharing point.
It was fairly simple to replace the firmware with the open source version (OpenWRT) that would allow me to run the pirate box software (A tiny python web server) on it.
It was equally simple to install the pirate box software package (OpenWRT runs a small debian like package manager called opkg). So within virtually no time I had a running Pirate Box.
I then realised that this version did not include the shout box (wich is a tiny chat on the front webpage) so I decided to go ahead and add that. This of course resulted in a long wrestling with upgrading firmware and package manager frustration. Thankfully the Pirate box community is fresh and full of enthusiasm. Within a few days a new package had been created (Thanks Matthias) and the Pirate Box at our café now serves a slew of theological papers and e-literature as well as an anonymous chat interface.
What did I end up sharing on the box? Well come down to our café and find out, it will be well worth the visit (at least if you are in the general neighborhoud anyway).
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