From: richard kirkcaldy (richard.kirkcaldy@ic24.net)
Date: Mon Jun 11 2001 - 23:11:14 CEST
09/06/01 21:33:32, "Vesa-Pekka Palmu" <vessu@dlc.fi> wrote:
>Ok I'm back....
>
>I would like to have some help with the following:
>
>I'm planning to create a public access terminal, the users are
>mostly 7-16 years old and the terminal wonät have network access
>of any sort.
@What will it be used for then? Office Applications? AbiWord and Gnumeric are great software to run on
Linux, but you'll have to avoid Star Office, as it is slow at 400Mhz. How many users will you be supporting? The
"problem" with Linux is that cracklibs is installed as default - and you have to make passwords very secure (and
hard to remember for the younger children.
>
>The computer itself is a 120Mhz pentium with 24mb ram.
@Should run RedHat fine then, though maybe a little slow. Personally I would install both Gnome, and KDE -
both for the libraries that come bundled, and the kdm logon manager is very easy to setup as root. However I
would run wmaker as the window manager - it is much faster, though quite different to Windows.
>
>I have thought of using redhat 6.2 as the base of the terminal,
>because it is only "up to date" linux distribution that I have at hand.
@Add to that "It's better than Suse", "It actually installs, unlike Corel and RedHat7.1", "It doesn't crash like
TurboLinux or Microsoft", "RPM's are more popular than DEB's". Yes I agree it's a good choice, though if you
could get 7.1 to install it would be better - good luck.
>
>the points that I have tohught:
>1. MOUNTING THE ROOT AS READ-ONLY and loading /etc as a
>ramsdisk so that the configuration is restored at reboot.
@Why bother? Redhat is much more secure than MuLinux, and only root can access files outside of anybody's
home area, access serial ports, or shutdown - unless permissions are changed as root.
>
>2. Staring X at boot time and loggin the user in automatically, with
>very limited access of course.
@Errm, why are you going to log the user on automatically? Ease of use? That way everybody will be able to
use each other's files, with a small number of users it isn't difficult to give them all their own user area and easy
passwords - "My First Dictionary" or similar may be usefull here. Use kdm for reasons mentioned above. I think
the way I got that working was to (re)move gdm and create a symbolic link to kdm in it's place. It's not the best
way, but I couldn't work out how to do it the other way.
If you really insist on auto logon then something like:-
### Start Script ###
#!/bin/bash
logon user pass #
startx
### End Script ###
Might work if placed in /etc/rc.d/rc.local, I haven't tested it. Or alternatively you could just leave it logged on all
the time and run xscreensaver, though pesky students would logout.
>
>I would be very happy if you could offer some help with this, as my
>experience of customizing linux is limited to mulinux.. also if you
@Customizing RedHat is pretty easy if you use linuxconf and setup as root. Although the sendmail setup from
there is useless. And running RedHat means a lot of people will be able to help you.
>know a place where I can fing games for linux tell me.
@Finding games for Linux is not so easy as windows - because of the extra libraries that each game needs.
And if you've not got a 3d graphics card like me it is even harder. There are some games on the RedHat disk,
(cdrom/Redhat/RPMS) they aren't all that good - but there are some good ones. Specifically - xJewels,
gammon, xboard, xPilot, xbill, and a rubiks cube. Also try gnome-games and kde-games, and I can't remember
where it came from but koules is good.
-- Richard Kirkcaldy, Richard.kirkcaldy@ic24.net --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: mulinux-unsubscribe@sunsite.dk For additional commands, e-mail: mulinux-help@sunsite.dk
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