The locked-down desktop

[Sy]

http://pclinuxos.com/

Yes, it exists.. with all the functionality you want.  Office, IM, p2p
is all configured out of the box by default.  I could use the stock
liveboot cd for most of my needs.

For other functionality.. install it to a HD, add packages (via
apt-get or synaptic), and then wrap it back up into a bootable and
installable cd.

--

I'd say that there are a number of liveboot installable distros which
would do the "average user" thing quite well.

Blocking a user from using their own system with security features
wouldn't be well received in my opinion.. but having them log in as a
regular user to do 95% of their work would go a long way in keeping a
nice happy system going.



On 5/14/05, Mike Newman <presidentofthefuture-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I've been thinking about this idea of the "average user," who wants to
> surf the web, do light word processing, check their e-mail, and play
> FreeCell.
> 
> So, I'm thinking that if you were to create a custom distro install
> for this purpose, you could boot to a friendly splash screen and
> auto-login as a user who can only run these programs.
> 
> Also, external drives and cameras should be mounted and appear on the
> desktop automagically.
> 
> I guess my first question is: has anyone done something like this before?
> Othewise:
> * How would you restrict which executables they could run? grsecurity?
> * What would be an easy way for the user to configure PPP (IMO the
> only thing they should have to configure)?
> * Any ideas as to how *you* could push out updates to this setup?
> * Automounting? The last time that I experimented with this there was
> something called "supermount" and most users agreed that it was
> broken.
> 
> My personal opinion is that the "average user" is certainly capable of
> learning to effectively use the Unix CLI, let alone GNOME or KDE.
> However, I don't think that plunking a newbie down in front of Windows
> XP Home and leaving them to it is very productive, either.
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