Porteus Kiosk variant "Cloud"


Porteus Kiosk variant "Cloud" is built on top of the standard Porteus Kiosk operating system. It focuses on providing an easy access to the web applications and services like Google Apps for Education, Jolicloud, OwnCloud or Dropbox.

Its indended mainly for educational environments although with some changes it could be used anywhere else.

Purpose:

Our goal is to deliver an operating system which is less restrictive than default kiosk installation so students, partons and users could do more with it. All viable system functions can be controlled by the teacher/administrator, users may be still limited in their activities if its necessary.


Why Porteus Kiosk variant "Cloud" and not any other operating system offering similar functionality?

There are many areas where our system has strong points:

  • Its free to use and based on open source components.
  • Its small and copied entirely to RAM offering unmatched speed and stability.
  • Its locked down tightly as inherits most of default system settings from the parent Kiosk project.
  • Is flexible and can be configured in great details with friendly first run wizard.
  • Supports remote management making large deployments easy to maintain.
  • Can be quickly deployed through the network (PXE boot) to all PCs in the classroom/library/internet cafe.
  • Can be monitored and managed through the Porteus Kiosk Server.
  • Automatic updates are highly recommended but not forced.

  • What are the main differences with parent Porteus Kiosk system?

  • Private mode is disabled for the browser so e.g. users can always sign into their Google account.
  • Its not possible to control browser UI layout (disable/hide navigation bar, disable address bar), disable input devices or hide mouse cursor as these settings makes no use for the "Cloud" type of the system.
  • Other API parameters are available so you can configure the browser/system features as you like.
  • Downloads are unblocked so users are allowed to fetch files from the network and store them locally.
  • File protocol is enabled as a requirement for displaying "local storage" folder in the browser window.
  • Removable devices (usb sticks, flash cards) are mounted with write access. Users must click on the "eject removable device" button in order to unmount them safely.
  • Bottom panel is present by default providing an access to launchers, task manager, volume control, battery applet, clock/calendar and exit session button.

  • Please download Porteus Kiosk variant "Cloud" from our download page and provide feedback which is necessary to improve this offering.

    Sample screenshots: