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Distributions/Configurations For Specific Uses?
Page writes "My college (UMPI) is currently reviewing a proposal to collect old hardware from small businesses and assemble machines for those who do not have a PC. The issue came up as to what linux distro to use that will allow us ease of both setup and ability to lock down the machine so once they are out in the field, they cant be tinkered with by accident (thus preventing problems later). These will be used solely for the purpose of web activities (surfing/mail), and word processing and *THATS IT*. Does anyone have suggestions and an idea about how to go about a standardized (or a sort of embedded) configuration across variable hardware?"
If it's possible, why not just set up terminals?
Whether a machine is a P166 or AMD 2000+ it'll be pretty much the same. Most colleges have networked dorms and such anyhow.
You might as well go with RedHat or your favorite distro, but when you're piecing computers together you can't do much about standards. Just hope for the best!
I'll guarantee you, once you get these machines out into the world, people will want to print with them. Printers fail and are changed, how will the plans for locked down systems affect the users ability to actually create something? Otherwise, I like the concept.
Some of the network appliance software can be modified to use in closed systems.
If you can download the software for the ThinkNic computers. This is basically a scaled back machine for internet browsing. You can use this as a model for scaling back services. Or you can get a distro like Gentoo, install the base system and include the services you want. Set up a user account and don't give the root password. This should lock the system enough that you can fix problems as root if needed but limits the users ability to install.
I would take the Gentoo option so that you compile optimised for the refurb machines you are using. This will help in performance over a generic installation. Then I would add the x servers and desktop, web browser, email, news client, and maybe open office, depending on your aims. Set up the user accounts. Give them access to those programs and space to save their documents in. Create xinit scripts to log them directly into x windows and they should be happy. If you focus on the process to do that you can make it an install procedure instead of a distribution and your machines will be optimised and the setup time in the end will be about the same.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
For a handful of low end pcs or more in a Tbase100 with a nice fast and redundant server is one I do alot of. Linux Terminal Server Project is good for info on this. But for homes perhaps not? Wasn't the question more about os config to make the box rugged when used by "users" for a finite set of tasks? A hardening script or set of...? Personally I prefer a bare metal recovery option off cds using tar rather than restricting users too much. As for hardware support, I consider that one of linux strengths especially with slightly older lower specced stuff... IMHO
Any distro should work (choose Debian.) Most distro feature some form of automated installation.
PCI hardware is rarely a problem with newer kernels/distros, but if you're talking P100s and 486s with isa cards you may run into problems requiring custom setups (might be fun.)
Linux distros are by default (I'm going to regret saying this) locked down, but (I'm regretting) should be tweaked with boot passwords, firewalls (and updates.)
If possible running the machines as thin clients is a option to considere. (Although you would need to add a few strong servers which will add to your sofar 0$ budget.)
Look a monkey!
I agree with the previous posts about netbooting. Take a gool look at the LTSP / K12LTSP projects. The boot images that are assigned can be modified for specific machines based on MAC address, allowing you to configure lesser hardware to use the processing power of the server, and newer hardware to use its own processing power, with network storage of all ./home directories and apps. You can even use a modified version of DHCPd and an appropreate MacOS image to boot most Mac computers this way.
e aver/macnb/
Word of warning, do not try and place the LTSP servers in a "server farm", spread them out over the network.
By having the computers as diskless workstations you can greatly simplify the long-term IT overhead of these systems, while at the same time accomplishing your goals.
For LTSP See:
k12ltsp.org
ltsp.org
For the modified DHCPd to do Mac NetBooting:
staff.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/~rlinew
That would be fast as hell, secure (no hard drive) and (free, free and free). You can type all you want in the notepad on Yahoo.
Use any distro. /, /usr, /etc paritions read-only. /var, /tmp, /home patitions read-write.
Mount your
Mount
Don't give out the root password.
Done!
would be beneficial.. the user would have a difficult time of screwing up his OS if he can't write to it. A small HDD or a network fileserver would be needed to store data on, though.
Several Live CD distro's exist, such as demolinux, which has a version that comes with OpenOffice..
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
You will need to probably run a very lightweight desktop such as Xfce, if your hardware is very old. If you use Mandrake, you can play around choosing a minimal set of packages in the install, and then save the packages list on a floppy so that you only need to do the selection once. Installing in the rest of the machines will be much faster. Probably half an hour or so per machine if you do a light install.
Good luck, and thank you for choosing GNU/Linux :-)
...back when I was in high school. The only problem I ran into was this:
If you donate a linux box to someone who doesn't own a computer, what are the chances that they will be able to operate it? How will they keep up on all of the patches? What will they do if they have problems operating linux? Generally they can't get just anyone to help them out because linux users are a minority (granted, this isn't so much of a problem in a university setting). Typically someone who doesn't own a computer isn't exactly computer literate. How can we expect someone who doesn't even know how to use windows correctly navigate linux? Let's face it, they aren't going to spend their time pouring over technical books. Overall though, I guess it's better to have a computer and not know how to really use it than to have nothing at all. Just my 2 cents..
As a few posters already mentioned, any distribution would probably work. From your rather short question it's hard to give an example of a definite solution. Some questions which come to mind are:
- how will these people access the net once they have the machines at their final destination? ethernet? modem? how will
they get network information? static? dhcp?
- how do you want to assure that the machines are not 'tinkered with'? no root? no sudo?
- how do you want to arrange for security / functionality updates / upgrades? will the people need to come in with their equipment to you? will the updates take place after the user is done surfing (a la AOL)? will they be automatic (you run 'current' on a central server with updates, they run a cron job as root to check for updates once a day, say)? will a pop-up ask them if they want to download updates now? schedule for later?
Questions abound. I can say for certain that most of the questions just posed are solvable with RedHat, because I've done it here (albeit for a more less unified platform hardware-wise). You can set up a kickstart server, auto-partition drives, throw in a set of custom packages + dependencies, configure various subsystems etc etc. You should try to determine the ranges of hardware configurations you're likely to expect (e.g. IDE harddrives between 500 and 4000MB; video cards with no more than 4MB RAM) and set up your kickstarts accordingly. You could also set up a central file server (with quota) so that any document the end users wants preserved in case of a hardware failure on their end, will be. A central server with software updates, available to a pre-determined ranges of IP addresses, would provide your users with an easy way of keeping their machines up-to-date on all the latest ssl/ssh patches.
How many machines total are you talking about here? 100? 1,000? 10,000?
If you'd like to think about the RedHat path, I can point you to some pretty decent documentation which will take you through more details.
Sherloqq
Have EVDO, will travel.
"There's reasons why geeks are frequently thought of as elitist. We're not known as the most socially or financially generous group. We don't tend to help others up"
Speak for yourself, I personaly built and gave away 14 computers to deserving families last year.
How do I decide who is deserving?
1 or more children, no computer. Note: a 486 or less counts as no computer.
How do I get parts?
1. I am a geek, this stuff is attracted to me.
2. My customers give me old hardware, that I have replaced for them.
3. My own preloved parts.
4. Once in a while I even kick in a few bucks of my own.
Why do I do it?
1. It feels good.
2. I am greedy, and want to have that feeling all the time.
Not everyone deserves a 320i
Yep, I just about can.
These are people who have never used a PC before, or if they have, never learned how to use windows. These aren't college students, but people who live in poor areas and dont have access to a machine currently. Thats why its just for web surfing and email (the word processing bit was thrown in in case we need to give some to students here, but I think the term idea up at the top which I replied to may fit that, but anyway).
These arent people who will develop, or need the terminal (or ever install anything). People like someone's grandmother, or an aunt who has never used a PC. 10;1 says that if I did a background that had a fake startbar at the bottom, it would never register that they werent using Windows9x. Not stupid people, just technically illiterate.
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
I think you a dreaming if you expect people to run OpenOffice and mozilla on old machines.
Mozilla is just bearable on my K6-200 with 96Mb of ram. OpenOffice just crawls.
As much as i hate to use MS products, on p100 class machines win95+IE5.5+Office95 really is considerably more usable than the linux alternatives.
Newer versions of MS Office might be OK too, i dunno i haven't used windows much for many years.
For word prossessing in Linux, Abiword is the way to go. It is super cool, and really small. I would also suggest using knoppix as a starting point. It has all the driver stuff fairly worked out, and it automounts CDs (probably floppies too). For the word prossessing you need to add either a standard print driver already setup, so they can print. Or preconfigure AbiWord to save as rtf by default. The rtf's it puts out are sufficient for esseys, btu I don't know how well it can format them for formal papers. You probably could get a deal on printers from the vendor though. I bet those cheapy, 50.00 dollor printers, at office max could be gotten for free for a good cause (they really like more people buying ink). /TK language.
as far as internet, you really can't configure that on a CD, so you would nead a small hard drive and an easy internet configuration tool. I would imagine a clean GUI over wvdial would work great, and be easily chopped together with expect and any random
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg