Part II — Sprouting
02 · The boot menu: the seed wakes up
Sprouting is choosing a path: the root goes down, the shoot goes up.
The menu
On the PC, right after switching on, the boot menu appears. It stays on screen for 5 seconds; if nobody chooses anything, it goes on with the first option.
Move between options with the ↑ ↓ arrows and confirm with Enter. The options (as they appear on screen, in Portuguese):
| Option | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Baobaxia GNU/Linux | everyday use: boots as set in baobaxia-rede.txt. |
| Advanced options… | only for whoever looks after the system (booting another kernel). |
| Baobaxia: criar a propria rede Wi-Fi (ponto de acesso) (create its own Wi-Fi network — access point) | the mucua creates the Baobaxia network. The way to hold a gathering with no internet and no router. |
| Baobaxia: entrar numa rede Wi-Fi (digitar nome e senha) (join a Wi-Fi network — type name and password) | asks for the name and password of a Wi-Fi that already exists at the place. |
| Baobaxia: automatico (automatic) | the default: the saved Wi-Fi and, without it, its own network. |
| Baobaxia: primeiro boot RECRIANDO uma mucua que ja existe (first boot RECREATING a mucua that already exists) | chapter 04. Only shows while the mucua hasn't done its first boot. |
| Instalar o Baobaxia no disco interno (apaga o disco) (install Baobaxia on the internal disk — erases the disk) | chapter 03. Only on the written image, not on the already-installed disk. |
What you choose here is saved: the choice goes into baobaxia-rede.txt and holds for the following boots too. To go back, choose another option on a later boot, or edit the file.
Joining a Wi-Fi from the menu
When you choose entrar numa rede Wi-Fi, the screen asks for the network name (Nome da rede) and the password (Senha):
Write it exactly as the Wi-Fi shows on the phone (upper and lower case matter) and press Enter after each one. Open network: just Enter for the password.
The keyboard on this screen is the US layout: letters and numbers are in the same place, but some symbols move (such as
/,?,;and:), and there are no accented letters. The password shows on screen while you type.
Chosen through this option, the mucua stays in client mode: it only joins networks, it doesn't create its own. If it can't join (wrong password, Wi-Fi too far), switch on again and choose the option again with the right password — or automatico, so it creates its own network when it doesn't find the Wi-Fi.
The mucua's screen
After a moment of messages, the screen shows the mucua's address:
- Site:
http://baobaxia.localand the mucua's number (IP) on the network. Open either of them on a phone or computer on the same network. - Rede (network): where the network file is, and the command to see how it is doing.
- Admin: where the password of whoever administers the site is.
To log into the mucua itself (on its keyboard or remotely, over SSH), the user is mucua and the initial password is baobaxia. On first access it asks you to change it.
The first boot
The first time the mucua starts the normal way, it works for a few minutes before being ready. It is the moment the seed becomes a tree:
- it gets its own identity (the UUID, the keys);
- it grows the system to fill the whole disk;
- it installs Baobáxia (the site, the archive, the first galaxy);
- it installs the certificate, turns on the chat and stores the chat app — if they came in the image;
- it writes the password of whoever administers the site into a file.
The messages appear on screen meanwhile. On a slow machine, it may take more than ten minutes. Don't switch off in the middle — if you do, it tries again on the next boot.
The admin password
At the end of the first boot, the BAOBAXIA partition of the stick (or disk) gets a file baobaxia-credenciais.txt, with the user and password of whoever administers the site. To read it: switch the mucua off, plug the stick into another computer and open the file — or, from inside the mucua:
sudo cat /boot/efi/baobaxia-credenciais.txtWrite it down somewhere safe and delete the file: whoever has the stick in hand can read it.
And the Raspberry?
The Raspberry doesn't have this menu: the network is chosen only through baobaxia-rede.txt (on the bootfs partition). The first boot, the screen with the address and the admin password work the same way.