Q I am about to start developing an information kiosk that will run from a bootable CD. This is not an internet café-type application but rather what one might see in a mall or similar offering local information. I would appreciate your suggestions on good starting points. I'm leaning towards a Linux-based system but have no idea which distribution I'm going to use. It must have a small footprint window manager, like FVWM, and a browser without toolbar. A printer and magnetic card reader will be part of the hardware environment.
A There are a selection of bootable Linux distributions that will do a great job of providing a dumb terminal for a kiosk. PCLinux OS is a great little desktop distribution that runs KDE and provides a selection of applications. FVWM is a little antiquated, but alternatives such as Sawfish or Blackbox are ideal for use on a simple desktop (see Roundup on page 36). Of course, you need not run a window manager at all, if all you need to do is provide browser access. Simply start up the browser and pass it the geometry to be full screen, and any moving or resizing capabilities are not required.