AS I've said MANY times, there are lots of minimalistic LiveCDs. If you don't like KioskCD or the best one, Webconverger, then make yourself a custom Puppy LiveCD or DamnSmallLinux. Those two ALREADY have ALL the customization stuff BUILT-IN. Why is this so hard? Let's try not to reinvent the wheel here or make some big new project, just edit the dang LiveCD already. Get MagicISO for $20 for Windows (Well worth it if you are doing many ISOs for LiveCDs) or figure out how to mount and edit ISOs on Linux(slightly more complex). We are not treading new territory here. How long has Knoppix been out on the scene with the LiveCD idea?

Here's a spin, try building a custom LiveCD of Linux From Scratch (LFS). Then you can get all that custom compiling out of your system at the same time. It's like Gentoo only more ricer.

Of those distros I mentioned above, DamnSmall, Puppy, Webconverger, and KioskCD can ALL be loaded on to a USB device for booting.

Brian Kelsay

-----Original Message----- From: Oren Beck

As a result of past discussions on using free to cheap hardware for Linux some folks are sharing ideas. One of my campers here suggested I "bribe" programmers to improve his kiosk Linux experience! That evening produced about 10 pages of scribbled notes on must do and cannot EVER do events. Then a near equal amount of "would be so cool" functionalities. The upshot is we soon grasped a fundamental common element. A web browser was 100% of the user interaction with whatever that user was doing! So? Nothing earth shaking in that. The recurrent theme/s in comparing all 3 lists? must do FOO- never can let BAR happen - would be neat if it could?

ALL centered on insulating a user from preventable frustration .

The user sits down and accesses the web. NO tech skill needed. - For the duration of their session every step builds a "Go Back" button buffer. Saving and printing in some mode akin to assisted repartitioning tools. The information above was harvested from comments made by campers and staff over the last year or so that the kiosk has been up. Let me fill in the background if anyone on list missed it.

I have been using both Puppy and Damn Small for a public guest kiosk here at the campground. Subject to minor annoyances it's been an overall success. The question to me is what other options exist for this niche? Or is there potential in craft building such a distro? I would consider trading camping and fishing as incentives. Basically I think our membership has the collective skills to make several sorts of world improvements. Or just to share ideas in a different sort of meeting space

The idea being? To get a group session out here sometime next spring where we'd compare the winter's projects.

Has anyone mentioned this tool recently for editing your small/kiosk/special use distro of choice? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNetbootin

Debian also has some tool for this, I forget the name. I tried it and I had to have a ton of crap installed to make it work. Didn't work for me. Permission issues out the rear and other problems.

Do a Google on remastering ubuntu (insert your own distro name here).