Linux internet cafe ideas

Ok, I'm helping my dad set up a small internet cafe with 3 PCs, basic web browsing, email, and document editing mostly, and I've decided on Linux so there's no worry about viruses/malware getting onto the machines, or software license costs :p

What I'm more interested in is ideas of things for the computers in terms of stuff provided and lockdown/security - some of the ideas I have are:

- almost certainly Gentoo, if only because I'm more familiar with it than Ubuntu, and for the customisation aspects of it. I'll probably clone the disk from one machine once ready onto the rest or something to avoid multiple compilation/reconfiguration.

- Firefox/Thunderbird/OpenOffice, maybe Gaim and some IRC software too, and any small games bundled with KDE/Gnome or whatever :p

- need to think about flash/pdf support

- MacOS-like docking bar at the bottom to put the browser/email/IM/Office stuff on, and with simple names :p

- Compiz-fusion for other useful eyecandy but not the distracting stuff, if the hardware supports :D

- iptables to block outbound port 25

- OpenDNS to block dodgy sites

- some way to reset user settings to a known state. Not decided on whether to use a chroot, some way to copy partitions/directory trees over on bootup and wipe temp folders, or a mixture or anything else.

- dunno whether to have a separate box running squid to proxy web traffic through, so can do Adblock-type filtering as well like I do on my home network already, without needing local plugins which users can disable. If we go with this separate box, then diskless machines/netboot might be an idea too, but that's not something I've toyed with much before on linux :p I guess it could also serve as a remote admin point or even a full firewall and NAT all traffic through it.


Anything else or ideas on implementation would be nice :p

Have you considered using thin clients? That could be another step to keep people from messing up the PCs.

I think it might perform fine since it's a relatively small distribution area. Though I'd imagine it removes the idea of using Compiz Fusion.

Well I want to use Compiz Vision so the windows users get wowed at the non-Windowness rather than shy away from something they're not familiar with :p

I'll add CD burning to the list, since that would be a nice option too, and fairly easy to add anyway :p

Ah, I gotcha.

Might want to block some common P2P ports, just in case someone gets smart and tries to do something with it. That way you can avoid any legal problems your dad might get into as the owner of the connection.

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Originally Posted by crono_logical

- almost certainly Gentoo, if only because I'm more familiar with it than Ubuntu, and for the customisation aspects of it. I'll probably clone the disk from one machine once ready onto the rest or something to avoid multiple compilation/reconfiguration.

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Gentoo would be my choice, but obviously maintenance or upgrading is a bit of an issue. If you run a totally stable box then you should be fine, though from my experience, a reinstall is better than an emerge world. If for some reason you decide not to cron a re-imaging of the disks you could consider running a portage server and have it serve binary packages. Then you could write a script to reset everything and cron it for each night.

[q]- Firefox/Thunderbird/OpenOffice, maybe Gaim and some IRC software too, and any small games bundled with KDE/Gnome or whatever :p[/q]
What about writing a script to change the DE or WM? By default, Knoppix (among other distros) has a cascading WM menu which allows you to switch between managers.You could get a few opensourced games as well; stuff like Enemy Territory, Quake 3 and UT.

[q]- need to think about flash/pdf support[/q]
Flash has trouble with 64 bit so it refuses to install. You can modify the installer to install it anyway, but that caused sound issues with me (flash would kill sound for every other app until reboot). In my experience Xpdf and its backends (I used kpdf) mostly work well, but don't cope with some slides. Don't ask me why that is because I have no idea but they rendered some slides abysmally. Adobe Reader works fine and is now what I use. It's probably a better choice for an internet cafe, since most of your customers will be Windows users.

[q]- MacOS-like docking bar at the bottom to put the browser/email/IM/Office stuff on, and with simple names :p[/q]
I haven't found anything that I like enough to keep using, but the best one undoubtedly is the nicely composited Avant Window Navigator. Unfortunately the only version to install is the SVN version so it's not always stable. It's also very early in its development. There're others like kiba-dock (nice idea, but too intrusive, and causes Compiz-Fusion/XGL/AIGLX/Beryl to suffer very badly from the nVidia GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap), kxdocker or ksmoothdock (both really, really unstable) or using the starterbar from GDesklets (couldn't get it to work with compositing and it's not a docker, only a launcher). Those are what I've tried, but I'm sure there are more.

[q]- Compiz-fusion for other useful eyecandy but not the distracting stuff, if the hardware supports :D[/q]
Compiz-Fusion is really stable for me so far. Much moreso than Beryl, AIGLX or XGL was. If you do put it on there, you should include instructions on how to use the features - maybe put a list into the desktop background or something.

[q]- some way to reset user settings to a known state. Not decided on whether to use a chroot, some way to copy partitions/directory trees over on bootup and wipe temp folders, or a mixture or anything else.[/q]
I would chroot personally. It gives a totally safe sandbox to play around in and even if they screwed up while in their session, it's only a chroot so nothing is actually harmed. You'll have to make sure that the chroot is always into the same kernel that was booted though.
The Debian boxes at my university are re-imaged from scratch every night.

[q]- dunno whether to have a separate box running squid to proxy web traffic through, so can do Adblock-type filtering as well like I do on my home network already, without needing local plugins which users can disable. If we go with this separate box, then diskless machines/netboot might be an idea too, but that's not something I've toyed with much before on linux :p I guess it could also serve as a remote admin point or even a full firewall and NAT all traffic through it.[/q]
The Debian boxes at my uni also netboot. It seems like a good idea but I don't know much about it, sorry. :p

Maybe make a master restore disk so the computers can be wiped clean and re-installed weekly/monthly so they don't get filled with junk?

Also maybe some kind of inbuilt timer that when someone goes on it logs them off after the amount of time they've paid for?

You better add a warning first, baloki, else they wont' come back if they just lost all the stuff they needed to save.

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Originally Posted by rubah

You better add a warning first, baloki, else they wont' come back if they just lost all the stuff they needed to save.

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With the wipe idea? Most internet cafes over here do that by default anyways, unless you mean the timer thing and then the timer would always be visible and a popup box would come up when you have 5 mins left. Alot of cafes over here do that too :(

For the timer logoff.

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Originally Posted by Baloki

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Originally Posted by rubah

You better add a warning first, baloki, else they wont' come back if they just lost all the stuff they needed to save.

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With the wipe idea? Most internet cafes over here do that by default anyways, unless you mean the timer thing and then the timer would always be visible and a popup box would come up when you have 5 mins left. Alot of cafes over here do that too :(

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It'd make more sense to do it more like the pool hall where Allie lives does: Have them pay afterwards based on the time they spent, but take some collateral that they can only get back once they've paid (such as car keys).