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RE: Political Blather
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 25 Jan '07

25 Jan '07

Don't flip-flop on this subject. You wanted a dead easy system for people you know that are computer illiterate, that they couldn't possibly screw-up, that wouldn't get infected, that wouldn't leave personal info on the system. I gave that to you. DSL or KioskCD. If you start trying to make a thinclient system you run into a real big problem, a server. You need something to host the OS image and apps they use. This requires a separate box, just so some people can surf. This only makes sense if you have a setup with multiple stations for surfing. Say in a library, school, business, shopping mall or if you have a passel of kids like hald and you want several similar, low requirement PCs so each may have their own. And it requires someone that knows how to setup and maintain the setup. If a person has broadband and ONE PC, you need something that will just boot and go. If you have 2 or more, you need either a firewall appliance, router, wifi/switch/router, gateway PC, whatever. One of the good points about a KisokCD if you have one PC is that you don't have to worry about viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, zombies, anything like that. Set your kid loose for his allotted hour after booting to the KioskCD and then reboot the PC without it when he is done. If your friend or whatever graduates from just web browsing or wants a more capable, yet still simple, low requirement system, you can give him a full DSL distro. What is the big deal? If you still want to go the thinclient route, look at http://www.thinstation.org/ You can build your own CD from that and it is as small as you will likely get. You can even use ThinStation-O-Matic to customize it. http://struktur.kemi.dtu.dk/thinstation/TSoM/ Just be careful on the page where it allows you to load a build image. If you just went thru and made all kinds of changes, you don't want to hit the "load" button. It makes changes to the selections to match the example build files or your custom build file you created before. This TSoM looks a lot like what we were talking about in IRC the other day for an online custom ISO build setup. >-----Original Message----- >From: Oren Beck >Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 12:14 PM > >On 1/23/07, David Nicol wrote: >> On 1/23/07, Oren Beck wrote: >> > Ok- When I mentioned usability - it meant to appliance operators. >> >> Hmm. network drivers plus X plus lwm and instead of giving any kind >> of log-in the system just starts Firefox? AJAX >drag-and-drop kinds of things live inside the web browser (the ghost of a fifteen year old >> issue of "InfoMoment" screams "you mean the thin client?") instead of in the >> window manager, so they aren't a problem. >> >> Let the appliance operators use the Google document editors if they >> must have productivity software. >The summary of your comments to my understanding is calling >for a "thin client". >Ok- let-s work with this a bit- how thin can we go? > >What of a floppy based or CD based distro that has the minimal >hardware detect to bring up a net session, then by default >bring up a browser with any advanced config done thru web >interfaces. That is, if the target users for this proposal >even would do so. >The kiosk mode locking is indeed a Very Good Thing for public >users or the skill lacking relatives we support. Then again- >an intermediate level of "are you sure?" >guarded settings may cover the exceptions.

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RE: DSL minimized was Re: Political Blather
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 25 Jan '07

25 Jan '07

Ask and ye shall receive. There is an nxclient that is pkged for DSL, but it is older, from 2005. You could drop it in a /mydsl directory on a customized DSL disk and it would load at boot. You can also do VNC at boot, see the wiki. You might have to alter the .xinitrc file. If you got ambitious, you could create an updated pkg of NXClient. http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Category:MyDSL http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions# How_can_I_have_a_VNC_server_start_automatically_at_boot.3F >-----Original Message----- >From: Luke -Jr >Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 2:24 PM > >On Wednesday 24 January 2007 14:01, Jared wrote: >> > Eh... if DSL is so small, why does it need to be compressed to fit >> > on a CD? >> >> Because the CD fits in your wallet. It's a 50MB business-card CD. > >Ah, makes sense. ;) >But would would be cooler is a wallet-CD uncompressed that >just boots to a NX terminal or recovery cmd prompt...

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Where is it written? (Actually GPL)
by David Nicol 24 Jan '07

24 Jan '07

On 1/24/07, Luke -Jr <luke(a)dashjr.org> wrote: > incompatibly licensed .o blob, the GPL forbids its distribution. the GPL doesn't forbid anything. The GPL permits. The GPL permits this, and permits that. Where does GPL forbid. Chapter, verse, and quotation.

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Re: DSL minimized was Re: Political Blather
by Jared 24 Jan '07

24 Jan '07

> Eh... if DSL is so small, why does it need to be compressed to fit on a CD? Because the CD fits in your wallet. It's a 50MB business-card CD. Spend a few minutes on the DSL site. It's very cool, even if they left out ethereal... :) http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/usb.html -Jared

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Political Blather
by Jonathan Hutchins 24 Jan '07

24 Jan '07

A Snow Penguin is off topic, but this intense exposure of sociological ignorance isn't? Windows sells because Windows works. Most of the time, for most people, who need it specifically for one thing or another. Linux can be made to work better if a) you're very lucky or b) you are or have access to a Linux guru. My dad tried Linux - I think it was a Knoppix disk I sent him - and he couldn't get his printer to work. That's a deal killer - and probably a permanent loss of a potential user. Not everybody would have an easier time using a Linux computer, even one running Gnome. There's a reason there isn't a "College of Conservative Arts".

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DSL minimized was Re: Political Blather
by Jon Pruente 24 Jan '07

24 Jan '07

On 1/23/07, Jon Pruente <jdpruente(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I can appreciate > using very low-end machines for certain tasks, as I've got a pair of > old Toshiba laptops that just can't take any more than 48MB RAM total. > i've run DSL on those before. > > Jon. > I just spent the better part of the night being my usual insomniac tinkerer. I played with DSL and various limitation configs on my machine. Mostly I was trying to see what RAM limits are effective for using Firefox on DSL. I'd let it boot, kill off Dillo and start FF. Then try to read the BBC headline stories from the RSS feed button in the FF toolbar. boot: lowram dma noswap mem=64M Ok performance, ok browsing. Useful even. It's nice to know that a cheap system and a bit of RAM, and no HDD, can mean a decent surfing box with a modern browser. boot: lowram dma noswap mem=48M desktop=jwm Slower than previous, but still functional. boot: lowram dma noswap mem=40M desktop=jwm Slow, not truely useable, but passable in a pinch with time on hand. boot: lowram dma mem=40M desktop=jwm Better than noswap, and performs somewhere around the 48M/noswap, but not nearly as good as 64M/noswap. boot: lowram dma mem=32M desktop=jwm Slower than 40M noswap, but even Dillo ran slow. Dillo acted like FF on 40M noswap. All of these were booted from the LiveCD of DSL 3.2. I feel confident that if installed to HDD it would perform much better, as it wouldn't have to constantly deal with a compressed filesystem in low RAM. With low RAM there isn't much buffer space, so it must keep reading/decompressing/flushing the same stuff over and over to get something done. An uncompressed system would be able to read as needed right off the drive and would save quite a few cycles and some RAM space. Swap certainly helps when diving under 48MB. Of course, if the RAM is available, running boot: dsl toram gives a very fast and responsive system. I've even run BeatrIX and BeaFanatIX with toram, and they run great.With a decent CD-ROM and a smaller distro, it boots in a decent time. Jon.

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RE: Political Blather
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 23 Jan '07

23 Jan '07

If you don't need Java or Flash, you could fairly easily remaster KioskCD to use some other smaller browser, like links or dillo. >-----Original Message----- >From: Luke -Jr >Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 12:37 PM > >On Tuesday 23 January 2007 12:08, David Nicol wrote: >> Hmm. network drivers plus X plus lwm and instead of giving any kind >> of log-in the system just starts Firefox? > >Ugh, what happened to the LOW-END requirement? Firefox eats >memory and CPU.

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RE: Political Blather
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 23 Jan '07

23 Jan '07

Sorry about the extra "h"s. And I mean "crazy" in the funny, interesting sort of way. The same way MrZaius is crazy. >-----Original Message----- >From: David Nicol >Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 12:09 PM > >On 1/23/07, Oren Beck wrote: >> Ok- When I mentioned usability - it meant to appliance operators. > >Hmm. network drivers plus X plus lwm and instead of giving >any kind of log-in the system just starts firefox? AJAX >drag-and-drop kinds of things live inside the web browser (the >ghost of a fifteen year old issue of "InfoMoment" >screams "you mean the thin client?") instead of in the window >manager, so they aren't a problem. > >Let the applicance operators use the google document editors >if they must have productivity software. > >By the way, Briahn Khelsey needs to be told that the reason I >am so crazy is that there is no "h" in my name. Anywhere. Okay?

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RE: Political Blather
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 23 Jan '07

23 Jan '07

You want "damn smaller", again look to DamnSmall, but with a twist. A guy saw a need for EXACTLY what you are talking about and he tweaked DamnSmall with a user-created extension. First he created a booth-0.3.7.dsl that turns a DSL boot disk with this extension added into an Internet kiosk. Then he went further and created a website to distribute it, and built the fully integrated KioskCD, based on DSL. Then he went even further to build a tool to let you customize it. http://www.kioskcd.com/ It works great, boots directly to Firefox, locks the desktop out, won't let you make changes, no chance for viruses, restarts the desktop in 60 minutes, includes Flash and Java or can come without it. Maybe THAT will be to your liking? I would like to update KioskCD to a newer version of DSL soon to support more network cards, wireless cards and possibly the new Flash 9 for Linux. I'm going to poke around more on the forums since the holidays have passed. There has also been a remaster of this one to make a disaster relief kiosk called EZwebPC, but it is not as cool for our uses. It has a default homepage to some Red Cross pages and pages to apply for relief funds, but you might like that it has favorites saved for all major webmail sites. In a few minutes I had customized KioskCD to do this and better. Oh yeah, I HAVE mentioned this to you before. >-----Original Message----- >From: Oren Beck >Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 11:48 AM >To: Phil Thayer >> Fr: Phil Thayer >> > My example is a Pentium 75 thru 233 laptop with under 50 >MB ram and >> > under 1gig HDD. The concept of a GUI distro that will have an >> > acceptable user response time and run on laptops such as described >> > has not yet been demonstrated to me. >> >> >> Wow. I really don't understand this one. It sounds to me like you >> have things a little backwards. *nix OS's have traditionally been >> smaller and run much better on lower end hardware then does >MS OS's. >> This has almost always been the case. Either you are not installing >> things properly or your hardware is having problems because *nix >> against any MS OS will run better on older and less powerful >machines. >> _______________________________________________ >> >See above comments regarding usability and response time to >the user's perceptions. >As to the "not installing properly" issue- yes the guru level >folks can tweak, recompile, hand select components and every >metric of performance can only be improved by doing so. That >however does not cover the box stock units . >The piles of retired laptops that won't even load newer >windows let alone our standards of Knoppix and it's full size >siblings. DSL as Brian mentioned does "work" but is almost >painful to use in it's "insert cd, power on wait for desktop" >modes. OR "hand user an old laptop with CD in drive, they turn >it on and it just works. >I do NOT doubt that there may be ways of hacking down unused >cruft to gain speed, but then we re-enter the world of "us" >and upper level "us" at that. > >I'd like to see perhaps a "damn smaller" concept whacked down >to maybe even only a browser and networking in GUI even >lacking audio. So turning an otherwise dumpster bait laptop >into a functional net interface. Yes- we won't have eye candy >or idiot videos but the basic web itself before ADD/ADHD >audiences demanded all the crap will work. >After all- much of the crap we have been despising in some >other threads won't work on 95/98 either. > >ALL of my comments are based on my self observations and >personal experiences as to "what I and many others REALLY use >a computer for the most clock hours of any day. >For me- most of the time my mail is web based. It is simply >the most hassle free default. >And most of the daily reading sites are often chosen for a >lack of flashies. >SO we have me spending my time on webmail, a few websites, and >some Usenet often thru Google. All of which shows that a mail >client, a news client etc , audio capacity all cruft? >IS an integrated browser suite like Mozilla embracing or >missing the best way to do this? >"In trying to be all things to all people there lies a chance >of becoming nothing to anyone"

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RE: Political Blather
by Kelsay, Brian - Kansas City, MO 23 Jan '07

23 Jan '07

I wasn't going to do this, but you struck a nerve. I call BS. Over and over again, I have pointed you to DamnSmall Linux (DSL). http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ At the risk of sounding like a broken record, they have "50MB of Penguin Power." There should be no barrier to entry for a user getting DSL. It is so small that anyone can download it. Hell, Microsoft distributes OS patches that are four times larger! One guy even got DSL running on a 486 with >32MB of RAM. The only barrier you might bring up is that if you still don't have a CD burner, even though they are now mainstream. You could always get someone to burn one for you or order a CD. Or you can run embedded from within Windows, using Qemu or VMWare. They even have a method (called poorman's install) that uses a Tom's Rootboot floppy to boot the PC, download and install the DSL image to PC. So please stop telling people that some old piece of crap PC or laptop won't work with Linux. You can get even the most basic system up and usable. If that doesn't work, try Debian and for pete's sake ask for help and come to a meeting with your old crappy hardware. It can be made to work. Kepht still uses a 386 with Debian!! And to Luke: So what if your little blinky lights on your shiny new laptop don't work. Same goes for the 3d hardware acceleration. http://www.nvidia.com/object/unix.html Keep writing letters to the hardware manufacturer to get Linux support, whether it is GPL drivers or scanner software that works with *nix. Tell em you are using their hardware in the hopes that they will see a Linux market growing and give it more support or tell em you are not buying their piece of crap and you are telling 15 friends not to buy it either since they don't fully support Linux. But for gosh sakes do something besides bitch about it and spread inaccurate information. Same goes for the rest of you. Think for more than five minutes before spewing on the intricacies of Linux and its Libertarian/Commun/Social/Agrarian/Anarch/Darwin/Optim-ism. And if you didn't laugh at that last line, then you don't know me well enough. Come up and introduce yourself at the next LUG meeting. Jhutchins, read some manual pages before trying stuff. I know you immediately throw away stereo instructions, but try reading to find the answer for once. Luke and Chuck need to take a few college courses on government and history as they are a bit mixed up. Take Jared with you, he'll entertain the prof. Monty, you are awesome. Oren, put the tin-foil hat back on. Rich, how's it going dude? Dave Nichol, you are one crazy dude. Did I miss anyone? Peace out. >-----Original Message----- >From: Oren Beck >Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 11:28 PM >Where does it stop? I submit that there are quite functional >software tools for daily needs that will run on cheap hardware. >Many of which sadly are legacy DOS or win95/98 yet, I >challenge the FOSS world to get any OS and Applications >package that equals win95 for raw usability on old gear. >My example is a Pentium 75 thru 233 laptop with under 50 mb >ram and under 1gig hd. The concept of a GUI distro that will >have an acceptable user response time and run on laptops such >as described has not yet been demonstrated to me. >But win98 despite all it's flaws works well enough for most >net interactions at a simple text and browse level. >Much as I do use LiveCDs from laptops there is still a lower >footprint for win98 than any user comparable Linux shown to me >so far.. So show me better on such hardware! >I want to be able to displace ms from many more laptops!

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