Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

papaspook · Joined: 12 Apr 2013 Posts: 2

Hi I work as a sysadmin in a large primary school and Im getting my head round Puppylinux - slowly - as I think it could be a fantastic tool.

Basically we have about 50 grand worth of aging laptops (five flavours but mostly eeepcs).

My idea is to install Puppy Linux on each one with a really basic desktop/install so that the pupils can either go on the internet or RDP to a terminal server which has some of the popular software we use (2simple etc).

You can begin to see the challenge... They are only little - between 5 and 11 years old so I want the whole experience to be as quick and as simple as possible. At the moment the laptops are thick clients and take about 7 mins to turn on and be on the internet - OUCH.

So I would like it to go something like this:
Turn on and fast boot into Puppy with no logon and a simple desktop with perhaps 2 icons, Internet and RDP, few user rights??
The OS must see the wireless and login seamlessly. The wireless simply needs a key (WPA)

One click on the Internet icon and they land on the school website, and from there ...
One click on the RDP icon and they open a TS session with icons for their Apps...

Thats the users... I need to be able to create 5 Puppy images, 1 for each of the types of laptop we have so admin is easy as there are about 200 laptops.

I would very much appreciate some advice/pointers on this project. Is it feasible with Puppy? Which is the best Puppy to use? What is the best way to clone an install? How to set up the install so it can be cloned? And so on... Please comment on any aspect of the project, including how I can best feedback in a way helpful to others who might want to do the same type of thing.

Many thanks in advance

darkcity · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 2215 Location: near here

Welcome to the forum Cool

Puppy could be a good choice as it works well on older hardware. You should certainly see vastly improved start up times.

A common way to install Puppy is frugally. This means using a layered filesytem, the OS files are stored in a read-only SFS file and changes saved to the pup Savefile (held in RAM or on disk).

One option could be to remaster the SFS and not save the savefile. The OS will then alway start as it is setup up from the remaster.

Restricting user options may be a bit tricky as Puppy is root by default.

There are many versions of Puppy for older hardware, such as Wary and PuppEEE. The thing to look for it is the kernel number. Newer kernels don't always support older hardware.

Is RDP the Remote Desktop Protocol?

L18L · Posted: Sat 13 Apr 2013, 05:49 Post subject:

darkcity · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 2215 Location: near here

Thanks for the correction. If you choose not to be 'administrator' (root) when you make a savefile, can you remaster Puppy to be non-root by default?

majorfoo · Joined: 07 Mar 2011 Posts: 418 Location: Wish I knew

You might find this interesting

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=56557&search_id=215332818

raffy · Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 4636 Location: Manila

Netboot Puppy, and you can have the images selectable at boot time. Search for netboot in this forum. (But in general, installing it to the PC/netbook is easy with frugal install.)

And for Windows refugees, SalukiNOP is best.
http://download.tuxfamily.org/nop/
You can replace its Opera with your choice of browser (there is sfs downloader included).

papaspook · Joined: 12 Apr 2013 Posts: 2

Thanks all for your very helpful posts.

So far I've done a frugal install of precise puppy on one of the oldest eePCs we have and its great. Picked up wireless no problem and I learned that if you copy the 2fs file it gets picked up, which makes me think that customising installs is going to be pretty easy. Clean looking desktop and the mousepad works very well, which for small kids is vital. I havent had time to explore other versions of puppy so I'll persevere with this one. The next thing I have to explore is RDP - yes Remote Desktop into a Windows Terminal server. Sadly I'm stuck with this as the main school environment is Windows and I have to preserve continuity. I've downloaded rdesktop 1.7.0 and krdc 4.8.5 and will RTFM on how to install these and try them, but if anyone has a better suggestion gratefully received. A browser rdp session is possible and i'll experiment with that too.

cthisbear · Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 2942 Location: Sydney Australia

Not my bag but what about Teamviewer.

" The next thing I have to explore is RDP -
yes Remote Desktop into a Windows Terminal server. "

http://www.smokey01.com/software/internet/

teamviewer6.pet
09-Aug-2011 03:58 18M
Remote Control of another Computer

http://puppylinuxfaq.org/add-on-software/29-pet/198-teamviewer-wine-pet.html

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=54638&start=35

""""""""

And welcome to Puppy >> papaspook.

Chris.

Volhout · Joined: 28 Dec 2008 Posts: 242

You may want to check browserlinux (based on puppy 5 series).

http://www.browserlinux.com/

raffy · Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 4636 Location: Manila

rdp is usually in Puppy's Network menu, quite easy to use, just look in its man page. rdesktop is another name I can recall.

In Saluki, remmina is available.

muggins · Joined: 20 Jan 2006 Posts: 6660 Location: lisbon

remmina-0.9.3-i486.pet

L18L · Posted: Mon 15 Apr 2013, 11:53 Post subject: