[NMLUG] Fast X Distribution for older hardware.

[havoc at harrisdev.com (Jody Harris)]

Hmm...  You're just bound and determine to force me to write this up in 
some coherent manner, aren't you?  Do you know how much that hurts?

Client: Any PC that will hold up X

Server: PC enough to run the apps you want quickly.

Set up the Client so that you can log into X without a window manager, 
and get an xterm up.

ssh to the server.

start the browser.

At this point, your browser is probably not running full screen.  I 
solved this in Firefox by using F11 to change to "Full Screen" mode. 
Firefox 1.0 saved this as a preference, and on the machine I've tested 
this on, it starts up in Full Screen mode every time.

now, close Firefox.

WHAT I DID to automate things:

  - On Server, create an account (I called it "web") for web 
browser-only client.
  - On Client, create a gpg key pair with no password.
  - copy the public key from the Client to web@Sever into the .ssh dir
  - On Server, cat .ssh/kiosk_key.pub >> .ssh/authorized_keys2
  - On Server, edit the .bashrc (or whatever shell you use) and add 
"firefox" and "exit" as the last two lines.
  - close the server connection
  - On Client, test connection with
       ssh -i .ssh/kiosk_key web@Server
    this should connect you and bring up the browser.  If it brings up 
the browser, close the browser and make sure it automatically disconnects.
  - On Client, edit .bashrc and add in the ssh statement from above.
  - log out
  - log in

Hopefully, you'll "viola!" and be done.  If not, debug, document and 
send that back.  If I've sent you on a wild goose chance, let me know 
and I'll figure out where I gave you a wrong turn.

Once you get it up and running, you can set the Firefox preferences to 
not keep a URL history, not keep a cache, and not store passwords.  I 
also set up the guest account on the Client to be passwordless.  You 
could have the Client automatically log into the guest account, and ever 
ask for a login.


I think you can then change the file permissions to lock things down to 
keep people from changing settings or browsing around the Server's file 
system.  (This is one thing I was thinking of using chroot for.)  I'm 
interested in any input from this list.

jody


Tim Emerick wrote:
> Jody,
> 
> I would be real interested on how you do this.  Is there a howto or something
> online you could point me to?  I would love some browser only kiosks with all
> of the usual plugins strewn around the workplace.
> 
> Tim
> 
> --- Jody Harris <havoc@harrisdev.com> wrote:
> 
>>Try it with 512MB first.  Do some load testing.  Use openbox, or one of 
>>the other slim desktops, and see if there's even a need for more RAM.
>>
>>I really don't know how many kiosks you could reasonable support with 
>>512MB.  Firefox may be a lot thinner than Mozilla, but any HTML parser 
>>just takes memory -- and that's before you start loading plugins.
>>
>>Oh, yeah, on really-thin clients (browser kiosks), I use Firefox AS the 
>>desktop, and automate the connections with bash, ssh keys for logins, 
>>and have the kiosk user automatically logged in at boot.
>>
>>simple, simple, simple.  (Once you figure it out.)
>>
>>jody
>>
>>Tim Emerick wrote:
>>>Thanks for that suggestion Jody.
>>>
>>>As a matter of fact I do have a spare P4 Celeron 2.7ish GHZ machine with
>>>512MB ram looking to do some real work.  Wouldn't be a problem to throw
>>some
>>>more ram in it and see how it all works out.
>>>
>>>Tim
>>>
>>>--- Jody Harris <havoc@harrisdev.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Tim,
>>>>
>>>>the machine I sit at and work from every day is a PII 366 w/288MB RAM, 
>>>>20 GB hard drive and a burned up CD-ROM drive.
>>>>
>>>>I run SUSE LINUX 9.2, KDE, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Konsole, Thunderbird 
>>>>and Kontact.
>>>>
>>>>How?
>>>>
>>>>When I log onto this machine, I log into SUSE's "failsafe," which gives 
>>>>me X and an xterm.  From there, I ssh (-CX) to the AthlonXP 2500+/1GB 
>>>>RAM in the back room, and kick off my KDE desktop with startkde.
>>>>
>>>>viola!  Life is good AND fast.
>>>>
>>>>Now, all you have to have is one good, fast, well endowed (RAM) machine, 
>>>>and you can multiply it into a dozen good, fast kiosks.  You could build 
>>>>the fast machine for less than $500.00, probably.  Depending on what you 
>>>>limited the clients to, you might get away with less for all 12 
>>>>"kiosks."  If you use a less greedy desktop, you're golden for sure.
>>>>
>>>>jody
>>>>
>>>>Tim Emerick wrote:
>>>>>I have about a dozen machines with the following configuration:
>>>>>PII-Celeron 300 Mhz
>>>>>3 gig HD's
>>>>>160MB RAM
>>>>>3com 3c905b NIC
>>>>>ATI Rage 3D on board
>>>>>Yamaha Sound on board
>>>>>
>>>>>I've been really hopeful that I could recycle these into some decent web
>>>>>browsing machines but have been fairly disappointed with the results up
>>>>to
>>>>>this point.
>>>>>
>>>>>I've used the Knoppix Live CD and the MEPIS (www.mepis.org) Live CD and
>>>>>wasn't too impressed.  I've also installed the MEPIS distro onto the HD
>>>>of
>>>>>one machine just to see how it worked.  Again, fairly dismal.
>>>>>
>>>>>I want to know if I'm asking too much for these older machines or am I
>>>>>running  packages that are too top heavy?  I know that both Knoppix and
>>>>Mepis
>>>>>are Debian/KDE based distros.
>>>>>
>>>>>Anybody have any experience with other distro's that might give me a
>>>>speedy
>>>>>yet user-friendly desktop and browser on these older machines?
>>>>>
>>>>>Thanks
>>>>>
>>>>>Tim


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