Printing, Silent Boot, and Networking questions

New features which should be implemented in Porteus Kiosk Edition and the kiosk wizard.
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EdgeSharp
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Printing, Silent Boot, and Networking questions

Post#1 by EdgeSharp » 01 Jul 2013, 18:29

Would anyone be able to help me with a few questions regarding Porteus Kiosk? I am attempting to make a custom distro, but I have been having no luck finding answers to the following questions.

Printing – is there any way to enable printing with the Kiosk edition? Is there a module that I can add to the distro?

Silent Boot – can the distro be sent to boot silently? I see that it is possible with other Linux distros, but I have so far been unable to do so with the Kiosk edition.

Networking – Is there any way to create a module that would first check if an Ethernet cable is connected. If so, continue to work normally. However, if no Ethernet cable is connected, present the user with a “Network Select” screen? Something very user friendly, like how the Slax wireless network select looks? Example: https://www.google.com/search?q=slax+wi ... 1024%3B600

Quick note; I am running Ubuntu 12.04, and I have downloaded and run the Kiosk Wizard. Also, I have been running Ubuntu for over 2 years now, but just now starting to get into commands and using the Terminal. So if my questions seem a bit basic, or if I am using the wrong terminology, that is why. =)
Thank you for any and all help.

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Re: Printing, Silent Boot, and Networking questions

Post#2 by brokenman » 01 Jul 2013, 20:35

Hi EdgeSharp,

What you want is certainly possible but it's not really why the kiosk edition was created. I understand you probably like the kiosk edition because of it's light weight, but adding the abilities you want is going to add substantial weight to the distro. If you are looking to create your own custom distro then i would suggest you start with the lxde option in Porteus and build on it. There is also a thread about an openbox version which would be a little lighter. To answer some of your questions for accurately:

1) Printing
You can add the print module from the Porteus repository but it weighs several times more than the kiosk edition itself. You may also need to unblock certain things to have the printbox popup.

2) Not sure what you mean by silent boot, but if you want nothing to appear on the screen during this is possible. I don't remember the file right now Fanthom will know off the top of his head.

3) The kiosk uses the bare minimum for networking. The screenshot you posted uses the kde network tool which again would require many other dependencies, increasing your overall size. The only tool i can think of that can detect if an ethernet cable is present would be: mii-tool but i don't think it is very reliable.

In short I believe you will have less trouble building on a Porteus version that is less restrictive.
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EdgeSharp
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Re: Printing, Silent Boot, and Networking questions

Post#3 by EdgeSharp » 01 Jul 2013, 22:53

brokenman,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, I really appreciate it. To give you a little more background, I have a family member who is constantly calling me for computer support. I cant tell if she finds it to be a personal hobby to infect her computer as much as possible, or if she is incapable of understanding that not the internet is safe to download (web tool bars, screensaver etc...). That said, i thought I would use the Porteus Terminal to give her an environment where she can still facebook and email. The terminal is amazing, but she really needs the option to print... she still likes keeping paper backups of emails and things.

So with regards to your response, I think the printing thing is the most important of three. The network manager and silent booting were really more of a nice to have. So if I am looking to just add printing abilities, do you think I could still use the Terminal, or should I build a customer Porteus using the wizard?

One last thing, for clarification, with regards to the silent booting, I was trying to find a way to hide all the boot text during the initial start-up. I know it is an odd request, but again, thinking of the user, anything that looks like code scares her so I was trying to minimize it mas much as possible, and hopefully replace it with a cute puppy =p

Thanks again,

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Re: Printing, Silent Boot, and Networking questions

Post#4 by brokenman » 02 Jul 2013, 13:15

Seems a little more difficult than i anticipated. Adding the print module to the kiosk ISO crashes firefox when it starts. First headache. Like I said, go with the lxde version of Porteus and have firefox autostart in full screen. In this way you can at least save documents to your storage. Seems unfair locking down a user so strictly just because they suffer wind0ze.
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Re: Printing, Silent Boot, and Networking questions

Post#5 by francois » 03 Jul 2013, 01:54

Just go for a dual boot: one for kiosk the other users and one for lxde, kde or xfce for your daughter.
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EdgeSharp
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Re: Printing, Silent Boot, and Networking questions

Post#6 by EdgeSharp » 03 Jul 2013, 15:52

Will do, thanks for the suggestions.

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Re: Printing, Silent Boot, and Networking questions

Post#7 by fanthom » 03 Jul 2013, 16:46

a) printing is on my TODO list but i do not own such hardware so implementation of this feature may be slow (counting on the experienced people from the standard edition).
b) kiosk displays very few messages during boot (only important ones from debugging point of view) and i bet your BIOS/POST gives more. if you really want to make it silent then please edit 'init' script from initrd.xz and comment out all 'echo' commands (only ones which really display informations)
c) i may implement this feature in the one of the next releases (using xpns-tool from standard edition)
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