Re: Public PC

On Sun, Aug 05, 2007 at 03:06:10PM -0500, Dave Walker wrote:
I hope to place a PC running Etch in our small (tiny, actually)
airport building for use by pilots. The PC will be used to access
perhaps 10 web sites (plus or minus) over a DSL connection and to run
a few utilities to show GMT and a calculator and maybe a few
additional applications. The box will also serve as a real-time data
collection platform and web server for a local weather observing
system, so I want to prevent it from being re-booted.


Be very careful. These are two very different applications to put on
one box. You don't want the weather reports to stop going out if the
desktop freezes the box. A box that runs X, is almost by definition
more prone to needing to reboot than one that doesn't. Ditto if you use
a Desktop environment instead of a simple window manager.

If you really need it to be one box, here's what I would suggest:

Set up the server stuff first.

Setup a chroot for the desktop stuff, one that gets copied when used.

Use the pam module so that when the desktop user logs in, they get a
fresh clean chroot which gets distroyed when the user logs out.

Use icewm with the toolbar configured with the common tools. Also note
that Xfce seems to use more and more memory; I don't know if it has been
fixed.

Determine if you need a full-fledged web browser for those 10 sites or
if something like links2 or dillo will work. Hint: dillo is plain with
a gtk interface, links2 adds javascript but doesn't have a gtk
interface, whereas for flash you need a full browser like iceweasel or
Konqueror.

Provide an alternate means for an administrator to log into the machine;
ssh or serial console (or both). You may want to setup syslog to send
logs to another machine and put something on that machine to monitor the
logs.

Good luck,

Doug.


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