I know a couple forum members have (back in 2006/7 it seems) started internet cafe type places using Puppy as their OS of choice.
Well, me, having a little fun and dreaming about this, has been thinking about ways to get things to work
So ... I thought I'd make this thread with some questions and stuff about how to do certain things, or maybe just what's possible, asking for maybe some ideas/input, just to have some conversation. I don't know if there's any market in my area anymore for anything like an internet cafe ... but I can still dream
This is FUN!
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Here are my current thoughts and questions.
Running as user not root
As much as I love always running as root it's not exactly ideal for a public-access type of thing. I read this, and this. Anyone know how well they work?
I was going to type up a big long section about what the user should and should not be able to do but ... well ... that's just too much. Maybe later, maybe not. Ha!
Downloads from internet
Well there are reasons that things can get downloaded. But you don't want them to be permanent if it's from someone other than, well, yourself, the administrator or whatever word you want to use for this whole thing. So I dunno, are you able to set preferences in browser to automatically download to a specific (pre-defined) location and *not prompt* the user where to DL to? I mean, I think you can but I'm honestly not sure! (Edit: duh, yes you can.)
Also automatically clear browsing history and everything.
Set up your wordprocesser or whatever else to save to the same location too (without prompting? possible?)
So here's my idea:
xlock and session
I was thinking about how to, in one easy click, take care of cleaning up after a user (clearing browser history, deleting any files they may have saved or created) and then locking the screen to prevent use until "administrator" allows it.
So I was thinking about a simple script that would be along the lines of:
rm -r directory for downloads and any created files
mkdir same directory name
xlock (possible options?) +remote (something else?)
I don't know if deleting and then re-creating the directory is the best way to do it.
But I don't know how to deal with clearing browser history. I mean, if it's set to automatically do it when it quits then it's no problem *if* the user quit the browser when they were done. But if not and they just click the little "end session" button that would be this script, the script then has to handle correctly quitting the browser and I don't know how to do that.
And as far as xlock I haven't used it much so I don't really know much about it.
And then also see section about timing below.
Remote access
This would be a must, I think, the admin could have their own main computer which can remotely access all of the individuals, for locking/unlocking, and then just all general things.
How I vision it: Person comes to computer, admin remotely unlocks screen, they accept terms/conditions whatever, timer starts, user uses, user is done, clicks done button which stops timer and prints time usage and locks screen and everything, but if they don't click this the admin can easily access and do for them.
So whatever ... I found a couple things in my brief search relating to remote access, but each mentioned windows. Ideally admin (me!
) would also be using PUppy.Timing
So if this were a pay-by-time thing, or a time-limited-usage thing (like at the library) there would have to be some way to time the session. That's sort of the extent of what I've thought about this. Any ideas? Like what you could use?
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Well that's my thoughts for today
