Canonical makes working from home as easy as Pi
A new content collaboration platform for 64-bit ARM processors will deliver the first viable self-hosted web office solution for the popular Raspberry Pi 4.
The result of a joint effort between Canonical, Collabora and Nextcloud this will allow Raspberry Pi users to turn their Pi 4 into a self-hosted content collaboration and document editing solution in just a few minutes.
An earlier collaboration between the companies meant easy deployment of the Nextcloud Hub became available for x86 devices like Intel NUC's as well as ARM devices like the Raspberry Pi, but the latter didn't have support for a viable online office document editor. With today's announcement the lack of an office solution is addressed with the availability of the widely used, open source, web office document editor Collabora Online.
Once set up users can hold video calls in Talk, share documents with Files, edit documents, read their emails, plan meetings and more.
To install you will need:
- A Raspberry Pi 4
- Two USB 2.0 or 3.0 flash drives (2GB minimum)
- A Mini HDMI to HDMI cable
- A monitor with VGA or HDMI interface
- A VGA or HDMI cable
- A USB keyboard and mouse
- A network connection with Internet access
- An Ubuntu 20.04 LTS desktop image
There's a full walkthrough of the setup process on the Ubuntu website.