Does anyone know of any work done to create an "embedded application
shell"?
By this, I mean some curses- or X-based (or both) application that can run
as a shell around other applications. For example, if I wanted some kind
of public Internet kiosk, I might build some PC104 or DIMM PC-based
hardware, put Linux on it, then run this embedded shell which wraps around
an email client (Mutt, Pine, Emacs), a web browser (Netscape or lynx). It
would basically be a menu-based program launcher with robust error
recovery features, so if something like Netscape crashed, it would return
a useful error message, and maybe even some alternatives (such as Lynx or
Arena), as configured by the administrator.
It should have limited environmental control and maybe some file
management. Midnight Commmander might work with this.
It might be able to detect whether the local network is working before
launching a web browser. It could have a whole slew of dependency checks
(i.e. don't run web browser without network, make sure we have dial-tone
before dialing, etc.). These could be separate applications that are
called by this shell.
Of course, it should be able to run in a chroot environment if required.
It would be tempting to make it all web-based, but then you would have
problems with launching curses-based terminal programs.
Ideally (and probably not too difficultly) this shell would run on any
Linux port, so the VME, Dragonball, StrongARM, etc, ports would benefit.
Such a shell would be useful not only for kiosks but for PDAs and for
network blackbox servers (like the Cobalt Cube).
Any thoughts?
--Jeremy
Jeremy Impson
Network Engineer
Advanced Technologies Department
Lockheed Martin Federal Systems
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
