Hey Tom,<div><br></div><div>If I was going to run an internet cafe (I'm assuming 15-20 users at once here) and wanted to restrict what my users could do with the PCs then I would consider running a server and thin clients out to each of the desktops.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The term is virtualization, or more specifically for your needs: desktop virtualization.</div><div><br></div><div>Just to be even handed about this it's my understanding that RedHat does this sort of think particularly well although Ubuntu Server is certainly capable.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Here is a Redhat video about desktop virtualization: <a href="http://www.redhat.com/virtualization/rhev/desktop/">http://www.redhat.com/virtualization/rhev/desktop/</a></div><div><br></div><div>Wikipedia article for LTSP: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Terminal_Server_Project">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Terminal_Server_Project</a></div>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><br>Neat video on how to install and setup LTSP: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yD0QV_Cm2w&feature=related">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yD0QV_Cm2w&feature=related</a></div>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><br></div><div>The benefits of virtualization are:</div><div>- Lower cost of deployment on large scales</div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>
- Less power use</div><div>- More secure</div><div>- Users can't 'ruin' the operating system</div><div>- Each user can get their own virtual operating system, this can be saved in it's existing state for repeat customers, or wiped clean and reloaded from scratch</div>
<div><br></div><div>Since you don't need a hard drive all you really need from the thin client you can pick them up pretty darn cheap. For example: with a 1gb stick of ram this would probably do quite nicely: <a href="http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-zbox-zboxsd-id10-u-intel-atom-nm-10-express-1-66-ghz-dual-core-all-in-one-mini-pc.html">http://www.zotacusa.com/zotac-zbox-zboxsd-id10-u-intel-atom-nm-10-express-1-66-ghz-dual-core-all-in-one-mini-pc.html</a></div>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><br></div><div>Still, scale is very important to making this worth while and I'm not sure how large your internet cafe is.</div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote">
On Sun, Jun 13, 2010 at 7:09 PM, Tom Sparks <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tom_a_sparks@yahoo.com.au">tom_a_sparks@yahoo.com.au</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
I am wondering if there is a version of ubuntu for an internet cafe?<br>
Is there a installable read-only (liveCD like) version of ubuntu?<br>
<br>
tom_a_sparks<br>
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