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Linux and Public Access Computing?
An Anonymous Coward asks: "The Seattle Community Technology Alliance is a non profit, federally funded, public/private project that supports community technology centers in the Seattle area. We are interested in moving our public workstations from Win 2000 to Linux. In order to do this, we need good multi-lingual options and the abiltiy to create 'guest accounts' that prevent users from changing settings (to provide a consistent environment for users). What are the best tools for multi-user Linux labs? Should we use KDE? Gnome? How do we keep users from changing settings? We are eager to start experimenting, but would appreciate expert advice on starting points!"
And to think, people dare to say Linux users aren't helpful and friendly!
Here I'll sum up what you'll have to do, based on other posters:
1)Install RedHat, Mandrake, Debian and slackware. Yeah all 4. And then put a difficulty ranking for each one on the computers, like from 1-4 (1 being easiest) assign them all a 1 because everyone is going to tell you that slackware is just as easy as mandrake.
2)Install kde, gnome, windowmaker, blackbox, enlightenment, every other windowmanager that at least 1 person uses. Then install every single theme for them. We all know users want choice, so give them plenty of it. *already laughing*
3)You'll need the Gnome office stuff (gnumeric, abiword,etc), Kdeoffice, openoffice and off course emacs (but if you install emacs, you'll also need vi).
3)Put up posters in the room with penguins biting bill gates, or put "bill doesn't live here anymore" stickers on the machines. This will add to the feel of the room.
4) Make sure there are no windows in the room.
5) Don't forget to have one *BSD machine in the corner that nobody touches, just so the bsd people start complaining that "bsd is so much more 1337 then linux". Don't worry about keeping it up to date, noone will use it.
That should be pretty much the answers you get out of the slashdot community. Personally I'd get Mandrake 8.2 with Kde 3 and Open Office. Entirely free and hell you could probably just boot them all off the same network image if the hardware is the same.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me