On 3/26/07, Laxminarayan G Kamath A laxminarayan@deeproot.co.in wrote:
Really nice line of thought - I mean systematic and practcal approach. But you have missed one major point .. Wine will also execute viruses and other alwares just fine.. :-(
True. However thats where Linux shines. Even if Wine runs in admin mode, it runs within normal user domain of Linux.
What about floppy disks/thumb drives ?
Again - I am trying to understand what is that seems a problem here. Am not really familiar to the situation of virii under wine on linux.
In virus / malware case the main Linux machine remains safe since wine is run in user mode. This can later be taken a step ahead by "cleaning" the wine enviro when a user quits the system. Essentially a kiosk mode.
easy ?
sure.
So here is possible steps for a cafe login :
- Create a temp home dir for the cafe user when he/she logs in with
default template applications ( a la' /etc/skel ) 2. Let the user install / play / whatever and bork the home as much he/she wishes. 3. When he / she logs out clean the temp home dir. 4. Profit ?
you mean everytime he logs in ? wont that be a lil slow ?
it won't be if you minimize the settings to be copied / created.
what about registered users ? they will want permanant home dirs..
sure. the kiosk manager can incorporate this quirk !
If this needs to go even further let the linux image run under qemu,
not feasible.
told ya I was dreaming !
Back to virii, there are quite a few instances of viruses which detect and do not run under wine :)
But we dont chose the virii.
hehehe :)
A better solution to all this is to build a good Distro with server and client variations: There is a IE theme for Firefox. And KDE can have a mock-XP theme. A cyber cafe manager can run instead of KDM/GDM .. integrated into the authentication and session manager LDAP service of the server. The server can also have an LDAP integrated Kiosk manager.
It is easy to get into trap of creating new distros. Oft forgotten point is maintainence. Appropriate way is creating a "layer" for ubuntu etc which modifies the default installation to a kiosk mode. Imho sticking to the unix way of things of doing 1 small thing properly is the right way. Modifying something like vino (profile manager) under gnome is the better way.
And choice of desktop is not a question here because we are trying to switch in the first step :)
The first kiosk can have a very simple startup page - instead of the normal desktop - it should have regular tasks that a cyber cafe user will do .. have buttons like "Firefox" .. I will put some mock-screens up and post the url.
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Awesome. Any start is a great start unless you fork it :)
regards, C