The release of Porteus Kiosk 5.3.0 has taken place, based on Gentoo and intended for equipping standalone internet kiosks, demo stands, and self-service terminals. The bootable image of the distribution is 136 MB (x86_64).
The basic build includes only the minimum set of components necessary to run a web browser (Firefox and Chrome are supported), which has limitations to prevent undesirable activities in the system (for example, changing settings is not permitted, downloading/installing applications is blocked, and access is limited to selected pages). Additionally, specialized Cloud builds are offered for comfortable web application usage (Google Apps, Jolicloud, OwnCloud, Dropbox) and a ThinClient for functioning as a thin client (Citrix, RDP, NX, VNC, and SSH) and Server for managing the network of kiosks.
Configuration is done through a special wizard that merges with the installer and allows for the preparation of a customized version of the distribution for placement on a USB flash drive or hard disk. For example, you can set a default homepage, define a whitelist of allowed websites, set a password for guest access, determine an inactivity timeout to end the session, change the background image, customize browser appearance, add additional plugins, enable wireless network support, configure keyboard layout switching, etc.
During boot, system components are verified against checksums, and the system image is mounted in read-only mode. Updates are automatically installed using the mechanism for creating and atomically replacing the entire system image. Centralized remote configuration of a group of standard internet kiosks is possible with network-based configuration loading. Due to its small size, by default, the distribution loads entirely into RAM, significantly increasing operational speed.
In the new release:
- The software versions are synchronized with the Gentoo repository as of October 14. This includes updates to packages with Linux kernel 5.10.73, Chrome 93, and Firefox 91.2.0 ESR.
- Libinput is used as the driver for input devices, which has enabled touchscreen systems to establish support for gesture control in Firefox. When upgrading from previous versions of systems with calibrated touchscreens, the ‘evdev’ driver will continue to be used.
- An on-screen keyboard extension is included in Firefox and Chrome.
- A setting has been added to enable experimental support for hardware-accelerated video decoding in Firefox and Chrome.
- There is now the option to change the position of on-screen buttons.
- The ability to use Adobe Flash Player has been removed.
- The parameter ‘dns_server=’ has been adapted to work in configurations with DHCP.
- The package ‘sound open firmware’ has been added, allowing the use of alternative sound drivers.
- The admin panel has been updated in the server edition.
Source: opennet.ru
