[Commotion-discuss] Best Strategy for Our project?

Josh King jking at opentechinstitute.org
Thu May 5 07:55:54 EDT 2016


Well, while it's true that the work has been done, there's no current
release build that integrates that Nodewatcher support.

For my part, Commotion will include support for additional router
models in the near future. The slowness of development lately is due to
the fact that I'm the only one actively working on the project at the
moment (though we do have a number of alumni and volunteers), and I've
mostly been engaged in dealing with behind-the-scenes stuff related to
funding and staffing for the past few months. That's going to end very
soon; look for a big update on the status of the project by next week
at the latest. Personally, I'm looking forward to getting back to
software development full-time.

In a larger context, the greater community networking...uh, community
has been grappling with issues of hardware compatibility due to
increased vendor lockdown (resulting in projects like the one that Adam
mentioned to have pre-installed or even community-network-specific
hardware) and developer engagement (resulting in things like the
recently-announced LEDE project). Hopefully these efforts will bear
fruit in the near future.

On Thu, 2016-05-05 at 03:48 -0400, Georgia Bullen wrote:
> I'll let Josh, Nat or Chris confirm which build of Commotion, but
> Commotion and Nodewatcher are actually compatible as of the end of
> last year. We've been working with them through 2015 to make that
> possible!
> 
> -Georgia
> 
> On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 12:30 AM, Ben West <ben at gowasabi.net> wrote:
> > Thank you Adam for sharing instructions for building mesh
> > infrastructure off of stock OpenWRT.  It is unfortunately very
> > difficult for the mesh-oriented derivatives of OpenWRT to gain
> > staying power (Commotion Wireless by far not being the first such
> > to become a tad stale).  So, staying close to stock OpenWRT has
> > benefits.
> > 
> > WasabiNet, for example, started out using ROBIN mesh firmware,
> > based on OpenWRT Backfire, and many aspects of that obsolete
> > firmware still linger on in ugly Frankenstein form.  Nowadays, I
> > also basically compile off current OpenWRT trees, likely to the
> > point of being interoperable with MetaMesh nodes.
> > 
> > One key missing ingredient I'd like to point thread participants to
> > is a control and monitoring dashboard.  CW didn't quite have the
> > opportunity yet to deploy one, but I have been watching the
> > progress of Nodewatcher from WLAN Slovenia pretty closely.  Indeed,
> > I was able to compile its client on OpenWRT BB for testing.  I was
> > very impressed with it, although I didn't get a chance to test
> > drive its dashboard thoroughly.
> > 
> > The precise firmware makeup used by different community mesh groups
> > will vary (i.e. varying degrees of distance from stock OpenWRT),
> > but the prospect of sharing a monitoring and dashboard solution
> > could help focus energies, since all large meshes need that. 
> > Nodewatcher looks robust and thorough enough to be useful to many
> > parties.
> > 
> > You can read more about Nodewatcher here:
> > https://dev.wlan-si.net/wiki/Nodewatcher
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Marina Brown <catskillmarina at gmail.
> > com> wrote:
> > > On 05/04/2016 02:53 PM, Adam Longwill wrote:
> > > > Meta Mesh in Pittsburgh has begun developing a working system
> > > compatible
> > > > with Commotion (we use OLSR that grew from using Commotion)
> > > running
> > > > stock OpenWRT.
> > > >
> > > > You can find our instructions on our
> > > > website: http://www.metamesh.org/#!how-to-configure-a-router/b7
> > > luv
> > > >
> > > 
> > > > And we will be shipping pre-built indoor and outdoor routers
> > > using 2.4
> > > > GHz as soon as we finish manufacturing the cases at www.metames
> > > h.tech
> > > > <http://www.metamesh.tech>.
> > > >
> > > 
> > > Thanks a lot !
> > > 
> > > 
> > > -- Marina Brown
> > > 
> > > 
> > > > Feel free to join our IRC channel on Freenode at #PittMesh if
> > > you have
> > > > any further questions.
> > > >
> > > > Adam
> > > >
> > > > On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 2:49 PM, <dpeel at vtlink.net
> > > > <mailto:dpeel at vtlink.net>> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >     If we find we can't put Commotion on new versions of
> > > Ubiquiti
> > > >     routers, what would be our best strategy? Is Commotion
> > > updating the
> > > >     firmware to work on newer versions? How about Commotion for
> > > other
> > > >     routers? Commotion on Raspberry Pie? We need suggestions as
> > > we are
> > > >     going to quite a lot of effort to become a non-profit to
> > > provide
> > > >     community supported mesh internet to our low income
> > > neighborhood. We
> > > >     have had a pilot project for about a year using Ubiquiti
> > > routers.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >     _______________________________________________
> > > >     Commotion-discuss mailing list
> > > >     Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > > >     <mailto:Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
> > > >     https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discu
> > > ss
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Commotion-discuss mailing list
> > > > Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > > > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
> > > >
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Ben West
> > http://gowasabi.net
> > ben at gowasabi.net
> > 314-246-9434
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Commotion-discuss mailing list
> > Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> > https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Georgia Bullen
> Director of Technology Projects
> Open Technology Institute @ New America
> 740 15th Street NW, Suite 900, Washington DC, 20005
> @georgiamoon
> _______________________________________________
> Commotion-discuss mailing list
> Commotion-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-discuss
-- 
Josh King
Lead Technologist
The Open Technology Institute
http://opentechinstitute.org
PGP Fingerprint: 8269 ED6F EA3B 7D78 F074 1E99 2FDA 4DA1 69AE 4999
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