Rod, I have set up web-based Linux OPACs in several libraries and they work *great* with uptimes of hundreds of days without any intervention. Here is a brief overview. I'd be happy to share any scripts I have and feel free to write with any specific questions. I always seem too busy for the documentation so, unfortunately, I do not have a publicly understandable "How to."
1) I have set them up both as stand-alone machines and using LTSP. An example of the stand-alone setup is available at http://www.elbnet.com/fanwood/opac.htm - a work in progress. My choice would depend upon the available hardware. If your old catalog machines are early Pentium I'd choose LTSP for performance if they are beefier then that, stand alone may be the way to go. I have not set up LTSP with local apps but if the machines are beefy enough to run the applications on their own, why have the server? Just eliminating the harddrive is a small benefit for the cost of the central server. Since all the machines are identical simply set up a "master" catalog and rsync the "slave" machines to it. Savings: cost of one server! :-) 2) Auto login works great with KDM under LTSP or you can launch the GUI right from init for stand-alone machines. This way there is *always* a GUI running and it will automatically restart if it gets killed for some reason. 3) I like Icewm as the GUI and you simply strip *everything* out of it - i.e. blank toolbar, disable key commands, etc. but you still have a nice clock and a "pretty" look. Also lets the user open multiple windows (i.e. the catalog help window) and toggle between them "Windows style." 4) Mozilla is quiet easily locked down (removing all the menu items, address bar, etc.) and is launched from a wrapper script that automatically re-launches it if it gets closed. Set a couple of bookmarks for your catalog home page and other catalogs you want the user to have access to. 5) In Fanwood, I also put up a firewall on the OPACS to prevent people from clicking their way through the catalog to the Net. There are public Internet kiosks for that and we didn't want people "surfing the Net" from the OPACs when all the Internet kiosks were taken. 6) Ignore the old Browser lock-down stuff. That only works for the older Netscape 4.7 (I'd be glad to send you my stuff for that too if you want... many frustrating hours!). The newer, Mozilla 1.x is *much* easier to lock down and eliminate the need to use those &%$#% little graphics on top of the browser! 7) Finally, I run a slide-show with xscreensaver when the catalogs are not in use. I have given the libiries the ability to update these slides so they can use the idle catalogs as little billboards throughout the library. Running xscreensaver also allowed me to reset the Web browser back to the catalog start page between users. In Fanwood, with a little fancy scripting, I also automatically grab screen shots of the library's Web-based events calendar and add them to the slide show each night. As a result the slide show always contains information about upcoming events (i.e. book groups, Board meetings, etc.) without any staff intervention. Pete -- http://www.elbnet.com ELB Internet Service, Inc. Web Design, Computer Consulting, Internet Hosting ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net
