The modern way to do public terminals
Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Windows 98 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by gewg_
(4444 messages posted)
Sudhindra wrote:
|I have a Cyber [cafe]
|
I can't imagine how Windoze 98 was deemed a proper OS for this task.
At the time this was originally posted (April 3, 2008),
all versions of Win9x had already been declared OBSOLETE by Microsoft.
Support for those licenses was *officially* dropped as of July 11, 2006.
In addition, of all of the multitasking OSes ever created,
Windoze has the -WORST- security
and Win9x was the most pathetic of that lot, having exactly ZERO security.
You must have spent -HUGE- amounts of time maintaining those boxes.
At the time of the original post (as was mentioned then),
there were several Linux distributions that were MUCH better choices.
Linux is Free Software (gratis and libre).
Since Linux can be run from a thumbdrive,
you could even run thick clients from a flash drive located inside the computer case
(even after all your rotating magnetic media has failed).
NB Linux filesystems don't require constant defragging either
so, even if you are using HDDs, there's less wear on those with Linux.
Coming forward to the year 2011,
*this* is the easiest way to do a thick client deployment of public terminals:
cache of http://freecode.com/projects/fsprotect
[1]
What it does is analogous to Faronics' DeepFreeze.
NB DeepFreeze is closed-source payware;
fsprotect is gratis and libre (free and free)
as is the OS it uses.
For **even more** value per dollar, you could use *one* Linux server
and configure your boxes as **thin** clients (terminals):
(Note that most computers are idling >99% of the time
--even when someone is sitting in front of them.)
Small amounts of local RAM are less of a problem with terminals
and there are no local hard drives to fail.
http://google.com/search?q="Linux.Terminal.Server.Project"
As Linux has INNATE security,
Linux is MUCH easier to maintain than using M$ wares for anything.
Linux also comes with a vast array of server software
and what isn't *included* in your distro
is just a few clicks away in your Linux package manager.
[1] Debian-based distros include Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and many more.
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?basedon=Debian&status=Active
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?basedon=Ubuntu&status=Active
- Written in response to:
- Internet Sharing Speed Problem (Sudhindra: Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 7:41 am)
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