Looking for distribution for an "information screen" computer

Sep 10, 2012 6 Replies

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David Brown 13 years ago

I'm looking for suggestions for a convenient distribution for use on a small PC (x86 board) for an "information screen". On power-on, the system should start up a browser showing a particular web address in full-screen mode. Apart from ssh access for any necessary maintenance (such as changing the browser address), that's all it should need to do.

The system I have at the moment has plenty of power (4 GB ram, big disk, etc. - it was originally spec'ed for Windows), but I'd like something small and fast.

I'm thinking that I could start firefox directly from a startx script - no need for a window manager, much less a desktop environment. I could probably make a start from a minimal Debian installation.

But I'm guessing that I'm not the first person to want to do this, and there may be distributions that are more convenient already available.

Thanks for any suggestions.

David

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Aragorn 13 years ago

On Monday 10 September 2012 12:57, David Brown conveyed the following to comp.os.linux.misc...

That, or either Arch or Slackware. Slack doesn't install anything that you don't need or want, and still gives you lots of control. Arch is similar in that approach, but a little different in terms of package management and philosophy.

I haven't heard of any distributions that actually do what you want to do out-of-the-box, but this type of usage of the machine is not unique and has been done before, yes.

= Aragorn = (registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

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Joachim Gann 13 years ago

you are planning a "kiosk" system. the search term should get you there quickly.

regds jg

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David Brown 13 years ago

I thought of "kiosk" as being interactive - you allow users to access a browser, but with severely limited access to other parts of the system. This system is even simpler, as there are no users. But perhaps this just counts as a "kiosk" where no one clicks on anything.

But thanks for the hint - I'll do some searching on "kiosk" later today to see what turns up.

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The Natural Philosopher 13 years ago

I'd be very inclined to get a Rasperry PI and hack it...since that comes with a sort of debian, thats what you hack!

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc?-ra-cy) ? a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

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Danno 13 years ago

The first phrase that came to my mind was "digital signage"?

Slackware 13.1, 2.6.33.4-smp, Core i7 920 GeForce GT520, RLU #272755

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J G Miller 13 years ago

On Thursday, September 13th, 2012, at 10:29:52h -0600, Danno declared:

Which brings to mind this type of PC and Linux OS ...

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