On Mon, December 15, 2008 10:17 am, jtd wrote:
On Saturday 13 December 2008 00:44, Rony wrote:
Easwar Hariharan wrote:
Hello. There is a backlog of requests on the wiki CDs Wanted list at http://db.glug-bom.org/wiki/index.php/CDs_Wanted#Requests_
Easwar's message got me thinking about an idea once again. A low end computer system with a big HDD, speakers, dvd writer and *no* monitor, *no* mouse could be used to setup a dvd burning kiosk for dishing out Linux distros. By avoiding the use of a monitor, the cost and size of the system comes down and power bills are less too. Orca which is a screen reader will do the talking.
The entire hardware cost of the kiosk should be about 12K to 13K or even less depending on the available hardware. Colleges can make use of this kiosk and charge a small fee for the media + labour. They get to keep the fee to cover their operating costs. We could collectively donate such machines to some colleges to start with and study the response.
Definetly doable. Instead of colleges, set it up in Cultural book depot and or some popular mobo vendor. This will provide much wider exposure than a college. Setup one such in each major metro. Followup in the form of install fests in the vicinity would add punch.
We have an extra pIII - everything except for a working DVD writer (can be bought / borrowed) .. if people want to work on building a working model of this thing, am happy to host a session at our space in Bandra to build this and create appropriate HOW-TOs, etc. so it could be replicated.
I would be interested in trying to extend it into a burn-station for open content media. Am generally getting increasingly interested in ideas of things to do with old machines and this sounds really nice. So I offer space, coffee, wifi and hardware:) - let me know if people would be up for a hacking session on this ..
Let me know. -Sanjay
http://camputer.org http://pad.ma
-- Rgds JTD -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers