The new version of the kiosk system updates the substructure, tweaks the automatic configuration and optimizes the image output.
Kiosk systems close drastically reduce access to a computer and are used, for example, as information terminals in museums or as billboards. Porteus Kiosk automatically starts a browser in full-screen mode, you click together the desired restrictions in the installation wizard.
Alternatively, the settings can be specified in a configuration file, which in turn enables automatic setup. The new Porteus Kiosk 5.4.0 can be imported there via the setting “import_certificates=” also import certificates in DER binary format.
Configuration from server
The kiosk systems can also get the configuration files from an HTTP server. He can now create the settings dynamically. The kiosk systems specify the desired settings and other information about parameters in the corresponding URL. The changelog gives an example setting for a client:
kiosk_config=https://domain.com/kiosk-config.php?device=nuc&sound=0.3
The screensaver uses hardware accelerated video decoding by default if the system supports it. Screens connected via HDMI can be controlled using the “cec-client” tool. Taxes. If the Xorg server does not start up the graphics card properly, Porteus Kiosk 5.4.0 will automatically try the drivers for mode setting, fbdev and VESA.
Current Gentoo Basis
Porteus Kiosk is based on Gentoo, the packages used are from the current version of the stable branch. The browsers available are Mozilla Firefox ESR 91.7.1 and Google Chrome 98.0.4758.102. The OpenH264 plugin is now active in Firefox by default, which enables video conferences via WebRTC, among other things. In Chrome, the Porteus kiosk developers have added a “Share this page” button. hidden.
Porteus Kiosk 5.4.0 also fixes some minor inadequacies and bugs. If you switch to a second keyboard layout, for example, key combinations that are forbidden by default can no longer be used. In addition, Chrome no longer offers to reopen previously closed pages. This offer appeared, among other things, after a restart on kiosk systems that allow storage.
Commercial version
The developer Porteus offers the Porteus Kiosk Solutions offers a commercial server that can be used to configure and, in particular, control the clients. In its version 5.4.0, the server not only discovers clients more quickly, but only accepts three connections at a time instead of five. This is intended to reduce overhead when multiple clients boot at the same time. If you install the server in a virtual machine started with VMWare, the guest additions also start correctly there.
Porteus Kiosk is only available for download for 64-bit systems with x86 architecture. The associated ISO image is just around 150 MB in size.
