Porteus Kiosk news page

Latest information regarding the development of Porteus Kiosk project.

Full kiosk releases, new features added to the kiosk wizard, changes implemented on the website - everything what is happening in the project.







Porteus Kiosk 5.0.0 is live Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 2nd of March 2020

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 5.0.0 is now available for download.

Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 5.4.23, Google Chrome 80.0.3987.122 and Mozilla Firefox 68.5.0 ESR. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20190908: link.

Short changelog for 5.0.0 release: Added support for setting mouse speed (acceleration) in the system. Its possible to set different number of seconds for every browser tab which is displayed on the kiosk screen. Added support for viewing TIFF files in the Firefox browser. TIFF files are converted to the PDF format first so its possible to open them directly in Firefox. This function requires 'enable_file_protocol=yes' parameter present in the kiosk config. System clock is fetched every day from remote NTP server. It helps the kiosks which are not rebooted for a long time (e.g. 6 months) to retain correct system time. Added virtual keyboard to the 'session password' window so its possible to start the kiosk session without physical keyboard attached to the PC. Fixed Citrix standalone application by switching to latest 'selfservice' application. Sound level is set for every audio device present in the kiosk and not just the primary one. Give the user 60 seconds to perform an action in order to prevent shutting down the kiosk when 'halt_idle=' parameter is used. Added '-noxdamage' flag to the x11vnc startup script to prevent VNC crashes on some kiosks. Other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 5.0.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 5.0.0 on the wizard level Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 29th of February 2020

New features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 5.0.0.

1) Added support for setting custom mouse speed in the system. Feature can be controlled in remote config by following parameter: mouse_speed.





2) Its possible to set different number of seconds for each browser tab which is displayed on the kiosk screen. Feature can be controlled in remote config by following parameter: toggle_tabs.





Porteus Kiosk 5.0.0 is scheduled for release on 2nd of March.



Porteus Kiosk 4.9.0 is live Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 16th of September 2019

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.9.0 is now available for download.

Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 4.19.68, Google Chrome 76.0.3809.100 and Mozilla Firefox 68.1.0 ESR. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20190908: link.

We have finally migrated to Firefox 68 ESR release and that means the NPAPI plugins (except of flash) and legacy addons do not work anymore with this browser. Java module has been removed from additional components selection while Citrix Receiver works as an associated application. Silent printing is still not fixed so if you need this function in your kiosk then please use the Chrome browser instead of Firefox.

Short changelog for 4.9.0 release: Added support for setting default zoom level in the Firefox and Chrome browsers. Session idle function can lock the session instead of restarting it. Its possible to select large mouse cursors theme for the system. Screen locking button can be also present in the 'shutdown menu' if its enabled in the kiosk config. Remote config name is displayed in the Administration Panel of Porteus Kiosk Server so its easier to determine which kiosks are pointed to which config. Its possible to have the bookmarks toolbar enabled in the Firefox browser even when the rest of the navigation bar is disabled (kiosk works in fullscreen mode except for bookmarks toolbar at the top). Upgraded GRUB bootloader to latest version from git. This was necessary to boot some CoffeLake and GeminiLake systems which supports EFI firmware only. Forced screen resolution on the framebuffer level allows the kiosk to work in 'FullHD' mode in Hyper-V virtual machines. Other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 4.9.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 4.9.0 on the wizard level Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 14th of September 2019

New features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 4.9.0.

1) Added support for setting default zoom level in the Firefox and Chrome browsers. Feature can be controlled in remote config by following parameter: browser_zoom_level.





2) Its possible to select large mouse cursors theme for the system. Feature can be controlled in remote config by following parameter: mouse_cursor_size.





3) Session idle function can lock the session instead of restarting it. Mind you also need to configure session or root password in your kiosk config in order to unlock the session! Feature can be controlled in remote config by following parameter: session_idle_action.





4) Locking function can be also present in the 'shutdown menu'. Do not enable this option if kiosk is used publicly as users may lock the session accidentally and wont know the password to unlock it (kiosk reboot would be required). Feature can be controlled in remote config by following parameter: shutdown_menu.





Porteus Kiosk 4.9.0 is scheduled for release on 16th of September.



Porteus Kiosk 4.8.0 is live Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 21st of January 2019

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.8.0 is now available for download.

Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 4.19.16, Xorg Server 1.20.3, Google Chrome 70.0.3538.110 and Mozilla Firefox 52.9.0 ESR. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20190119: link.

We have not migrated to latest Firefox 60.x ESR release yet for three reasons: a) 'silent printing' function broke in Firefox 59.x on the Linux platform, we have reported the bug upstream and bisected offending commits few months ago although still waiting for this issue to be resolved by Mozilla b) wanted to keep NPAPI plugins (flash, java, silverlight, etc) alive for a bit longer as these technologies may be still used in some conservative environments c) need to wait for Firefox addon developers to port remaining legacy XUL addons to web extensions which are mandatory since introduction of the Firefox Quantum

Hopefully next kiosk release will bring latest Firefox ESR to our browser choice.

Short changelog for 4.8.0 release: Added support for the 'onscreen buttons' to the Firefox browser: back, forward, home, print, etc. Among other functions this feature resolves the case when navigation bar is disabled, user enters a non whitelisted page and is not able to go back to previously viewed page. Its possible to set default paper size for the printer directly in the kiosk config. 'A4' and 'Letter' sizes are available in the wizard by default but other ones are supported as well (you need to find the sizes which are supported by certain printer driver yourself as its not possible to automate this process yet). Added possibility of forcing the 'fbdev' DDX driver which in some cases - depending on the GPU card - offers higher screen resolution than the VESA driver. Its possible to set a custom port number on which the VNC service will be listening. This feature is especially important for kiosks which are connected directly to the internet (e.g. through the dialup modems) and are not protected by the NAT or the firewall. Non default VNC port helps avoiding brute force attacks performed by the internet bots. Remote kiosk config name will be displayed in the debug report. For security reasons we cant reveal full kiosk config location, however - config name should be enough for the admins to figure out which remote config the kiosk is currently using. Allow 'screensaver webpage' to work with webpages stored on a local filesystem. Added "Test internet speed" to Actions in the Administration Panel of Porteus Kiosk Server so its possible to check how fast the client can download 100 MB file from porteus-kiosk.org website. Added conky applet to Porteus Kiosk Server in order to monitor failed SSH/VNC login attempts possibly caused by the internet bots. Other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 4.8.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 4.8.0 on the wizard level Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 19th of January 2019

New features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 4.8.0.

1) Added support for the 'onscreen buttons' to the Firefox browser. This feature resolves the case when navigation bar is disabled, user enters a non whitelisted page and is not able to go back to previously viewed page. Pretty much any button (launch scanner application, unmount removable media which is mounted read-write, etc) can be added to the buttons menu in a customized build making it really useful. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: onscreen_buttons.





2) Finally its possible to set a paper size for the printer through the kiosk parameters. 'A4' and 'Letter' are available in the wizard but other sizes are supported too (you need to find ones which are supported by certain printer driver). Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: paper_size.





3) Added support for the 'fbdev' (framebuffer) DDX driver which in some cases - depending on the GPU card - offers higher screen resolution than the VESA driver. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: gpu_driver.





4) Its possible to set a custom port number on which the VNC service will be listening. This feature is important for kiosks which are connected directly to the internet (e.g. through the dialup modems) and are not protected by the NAT or the firewall. Custom VNC port helps avoiding brute force attacks performed by the internet bots. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: vnc_port.





Porteus Kiosk 4.8.0 is scheduled for release on 21st of January.



Porteus Kiosk 4.7.0 is live Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 18th of June 2018

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.7.0 is now available for download.

Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 4.14.50, Mozilla Firefox 52.8.1 ESR and Google Chrome 66.0.3359.181. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20180616: link.

Latest kiosk release brings more work on mitigitng Spectre vulnerabilities through updated CPU microcode and kernel patches. Newly discovered "Spectre Next Generation" vulnerabilities require updated microcode from Intel which is not available yet. Please consider enabling automatic updates service for your kiosks to receive latest fixes and patches as soon as they become available.

Short changelog for 4.7.0 release: Its possible to explicitly set the shutdown options which should be present in the kiosk shutdown menu. You can allow the users to e.g. reboot the kiosk or restart the session but they wont be able to shutdown the PC fully. Added support for refreshing browser webpage with defined time interval. This is useful for digital signage purposes. Screen rotation function has been split from more complex 'screen_settings' parameter. Handy if you want to just rotate the screen on different kiosk setups and want to avoid providing other screen attributes like vide output name, screen resolution, refresh rate or position. Enabled "DRI3" and "TearFree" features on Intel DDX driver by default which should result in a smooth video playback and scrolling on rotated screens. USB devices (e.g. smart cards) are redirected to Citrix session by default. 'Wake On LAN' function should also wake the kiosks which are in different subnets than Porteus Kiosk Server. Implemented 'Send notification' action in the server's Administration Panel so its possible to send a message to multiple clients. Added 'History' function to the 'Send custom command' action in the Administration Panel so its possible to easily rerun previously executed commands. Other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 4.7.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 4.7.0 on the wizard level Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 16th of June 2018

New features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 4.7.0.

1) Added support for refreshing browser webpage every "X" seconds. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: refresh_webpage.





2) Screen rotation is very popular in kiosk so we split this function from complex 'screen_settings' parameter to its own parameter. This is handy if you want to just rotate the screen on multiple kiosks and dont want to bother with setting up other screen attributes like vide output name, screen resolution, refresh rate or position. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: screen_rotate.





3) Its possible to explictly set the shutdown options which should be present in the kiosk shutdown menu. From now on you can allow the users to e.g. reboot the kiosk or restart the session but never shutdown the PC. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: shutdown_menu.





Porteus Kiosk 4.7.0 is scheduled for release on 18th of June.



Porteus Kiosk 4.6.0 is live Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 15th of January 2018

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.6.0 is now available for download.

Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 4.14.13, Mozilla Firefox 52.5.3 ESR and Google Chrome 63.0.3239.132. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20180114: link.

This release fixes Meltdown attack and partially mitigates Spectre vulnerability through updated CPU microcode and on the application level. Firefox 52 ESR browser is less affected by Spectre while Chrome 63 needs experimental Site Isolation security feature enabled. More patches to be merged as Meltdown/Spectre bugs are still a work in progress. Please consider enabling automatic updates service for your kiosks to receive latest fixes and patches as soon as they become available.

Short changelog for 4.6.0 release: Refreshing the client list in the Administration Panel is up to 10 times faster. Porteus Kiosk Server should be able to handle 5000 clients and more depending on it's hardware specification. Porteus Kiosk Server gained support for real time monitoring of the client resources. Following data can be pulled from the clients: current usage of the CPU, RAM, swap, root (virtual filesystem), persistent partition, CPU temperature, downloaded/uploaded data and client uptime. Data are presented in the Administration Panel and updated every 2 seconds. Its possible to sort the client list by specific categories, e.g. highest CPU usage and select which clients and resources should be monitored. VNC daemon can display a popup window prior to establishing a VNC connection and ask the kiosk user if incoming conneciton should be allowed, reject or allowed in a view-only mode. This is required in countries where unnoticed VNC connection are prohibited by law. First run wizard has the ability to run virtual keyboard (xvkbd) which helps to configure the system for touchscreens or when no real keyboard is attached to the PC during the installation. When battery capacity reaches 10% then system plays a notification sound and displays a popup window which must be clicked to disappear. Intel and AMD microcodes are compiled directly into kernel so they loaded early in the booting process. This is a requirement for never CPUs. Full persistence works now when kiosk is installed on NVME devices. Switched i915 Mesa (3D) driver from gallium to classic version as gallium one causes Firefox tabs to crash on Intel Alviso (gen3) GPUs on certain websites. Other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 4.6.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 4.6.0 on the wizard level Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 13th of January 2018

One new feature can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through the remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 4.6.0.

Parameter 'vnc_query_user=yes' displays a popup window prior to establishing a VNC connection and asks the kiosk user if incoming conneciton should be allowed, reject or allowed in a view-only mode. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: vnc_query_user.





Additionally first run wizard has now the ability to run virtual keyboard (xvkbd) which helps to set the system for touchscreens or when no real keyboard is attached to the PC during the installation:





Porteus Kiosk 4.6.0 is scheduled for release on 15th of January.



Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 is live Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 4th of September 2017

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 is now available for download.

Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 4.12.10, Mozilla Firefox 52.3.0 ESR and Google Chrome 60.0.3112.113. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20170901: link.

Short changelog for 4.5.0 release: Added support for EAP over LAN (802.1x) authentication on wired connections. VNC and SSH daemons can be limited to listening on localhost interface. This is useful from security point of view as nobody can access the kiosk on public network interface. Mind that you'll have to use another service: Porteus Kiosk Server, Guacamole, NoVNC, etc in order to tunnel VNC or SSH traffic to kiosk's localhost interface. Its possible to calibrate multiple touchscreen devices which are connected to kiosk. Cloud and ThinClient systems no longer expose shutdown options by default. Its required to explicitly enable shuttdown menu in kiosk configuration in order to allow restarting or powering off the PC by the users. WPA supplicant will run on all available wireless network interfaces and not only the first one. This is handy if primary wifi card does not work properly (hardware failure, unstable connection, mising driver/firmware) and you want to use wifi dongle as replacement. Tunneling service to Porteus Kiosk Server is started as a daemon rather than a script. When demonized the tunelling process can survive Xorg session restart and system runlevel change. Added support for email notifications to Porteus Kiosk Server. For now the only supported notification is when client goes offline for specific time period. Its possibe to sort client list by categories (system/kernel version, browser, last connected time, etc) in the view settings of the Administration Panel. Other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 on the wizard level Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 2nd of September 2017

New features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through the remote kiosk config in Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 are presented below.

1) Added support for EAP over LAN (802.1x) authentication on wired connection. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameters: wired_authentication, eapol_username, eapol_password.





2) VNC daemon can be limited to listening on localhost interface only. This is useful from security point of view as nobody can access the kiosk on default network interface (VNC port is not even opened in kiosk's firewall). Mind you'll have to use another service: Porteus Kiosk Server, SSH, Guacamole/NoVNC in order to tunnel VNC traffic to your PC. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: vnc_localhost_only.





3) SSH daemon can be also limited to listening on localhost interface only. This option makes sense if you use Porteus Kiosk Server for making SSH connection, in other cases it makes the SSH service unusable unless you customize the ISO and use another serivce for tunneling SSH traffic. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: ssh_localhost_only.





4) Its possible to calibrate multiple touchscreen devices connected to kiosk. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: touchscreen_calibration.





5) Cloud and ThinClient variants no longer expose shutdown options by default. You need to explicitly enable shuttdown menu in kiosk configuration in order to allow users restarting/powering off the PC. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: shutdown_menu.





Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 will be releases early next week.



Porteus Kiosk 4.4.0 is out! Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 1st of June 2017

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.4.0 is now available for download.

Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 4.9.30, Mozilla Firefox 52.1.2 ESR and Google Chrome 58.0.3029.110. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20170526: link.

Short changelog for 4.4.0 release: Online or local webpage can be used as the screensaver. Swap partition has been replaced with more flexible swap file. Its possible to set custom printer name in the system. Added support for hosting SSL certificates directly on Porteus Kiosk Server. Enabled CloudPrinting by default for Porteus Kiosk Cloud/ThinClient variants utilizing Chrome browser. All plugins for Chrome are enabled by default including "Widevine Content Decryption Module" so its possible to watch e.g. Netfilx movies. Create virtual mode on headless kiosks so its possible to connect to them through the VNC service. Compiled 'nvme' driver directly into kernel so our systems can be booted from the NVME devices. Other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 4.4.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 4.4.0 on the wizard level Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 31st of May 2017

New features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through the remote kiosk config in Porteus Kiosk 4.4.0 are presented below.

1) Its possible to use a webpage as the screensaver. Such screensaver should be more configurable than static video or slideshow of images. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: screensaver_webpage.





2) If screensaver idle time is set to '0' then screensaver should start immediately after boot. This option may be useful for digital signage use cases. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: screensaver_idle.





3) Swap partition have been replaced by more flexible swap file. Swap file will be created on a persistent partition and you can change its size on demand by adjusting the parameter value. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: swapfile.





4) Custom printer name can be used in place of default 'kiosk-pritner' name. It should be easier to find to which printer the kiosk prints if you have multiple printers in the office. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: printer_name.





5) Its possible to force booting the system from removable device even if second kiosk installation is available on the hard drive. This is useful e.g. if you want to test new kiosk version on specific PC using an usb stick and before updaing main kiosk installation on the hard drive. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: kernel_parameters.





Porteus Kiosk 4.4.0 is nearly ready to go live.



Porteus Kiosk 4.3.0 has been released! Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 13th of March 2017

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.3.0 is now available for download.

Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 4.9.14, Xorg Server 1.19.2, Mozilla Firefox 45.8.0 ESR, Adobe Flash 24.0.0.221 and Google Chrome 55.0.2883.87. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20170311: link.

Short changelog for 4.3.0 release: Configuration paramter 'client_id=automatic' will automatically asign client ID to the kiosk - no need for manual configuration per device. This parameter makes client installation easier and faster especially for large deployments. Serial backend for the CUPS printing service has been enabled by default. Some usb printers still require it for direct usb connection. If system installation fails then debug info will be displayed in order to help identifying the problem, e.g. I/O errors on target device. OpenDNS is used as a secondary DNS server in the installation wizard for static IP configurations. Added backup and restore utilities to Porteus Kiosk Server which allows to create and restore system snapshots. Administration Panel of the server allows to hide offline clients or filter them by specific string: hostname, browser, kernel version, etc. Client logs are displayed on the top of the monitoring window rather than bottom. Archived (rotated) client logs can be viewed directly from the Administration Panel. Other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 4.3.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 4.3.0 on the wizard level Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 11th of March 2017

One new feature can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through the remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 4.3.0.

Paramter 'client_id=automatic' will automatically asign the client ID to the kiosk - no need for manual configuration per PC. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: client_id.





If everything goes well then Porteus Kiosk 4.3.0 will be released next week.



Porteus Kiosk 4.2.0 has been released! Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 5th of December 2016

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.2.0 is now available for download.

Major software upgrades in this release include: Linux kernel 4.4.36, Xorg Server 1.18.4, Mozilla Firefox 45.5.1 ESR and Google Chrome 54.0.2840.100. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20161203: link.

Short changelog for 4.2.0 release: All files utilized by the clients (wallpaper, screensaver slideshow images, browser preferences, proxy pac config) can be hosted directly on Porteus Kiosk Server - no need to use 3rd party web hosting service anymore. If multiple browser tabs were set during instalaltion then its possible to toggle between the tabs at specific time interval. This is useful for digital signage purposes. Screensaver slideshow can display images in random order instead of alphabetic order. Recompiled xf86-video-intel driver without DRI3 support as it causes issues on older Intel Alviso (gen3) GPUs. 'C++' and 'C--' keyboard shortcuts are deactivated when 'disable_zoom_controls=yes' parameter is used. Added conky application to monitor Porteus Kiosk Server resources: CPU, RAM, storage and network utilization. Server logs can be rotated more than once in a day. Remote config can be edited directly on the Server through the Administration Panel. Other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 4.2.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 4.2.0 on the wizard level Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 3rd of December 2016

Two new features can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through the remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 4.2.0.

1) Its possible to toggle between browser tabs at specific time interval. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: toggle_tabs.





2) Screensaver slideshow can display slides in a random order. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: slide_random.





Porteus Kiosk 4.2.0 will be available really soon.



Porteus Kiosk 4.1.0 has been released! Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 5th of September 2016

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.1.0 is now available for download. Linux kernel has been updated to version 4.4.19, Mozilla Firefox to version 45.3.0 ESR and Google Chrome to version 52.0.2743.116. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20160903: link.

New release brings two new spins of Porteus Kiosk system: variant Cloud and variant ThinClient. Variant Cloud provides an easy access to the web applications and services like Google Apps for Education, Jolicloud, OwnCloud or Dropbox, is less restrictive than kiosk and offers functionalities which (for technical reasons) cant be implemented easily in standard kiosk image. Bottom panel, volume control application, unlocked downloads and removable devices mounted with write access are added to this system by default.

Variant ThinClient contains applications supporting most popular connectivity protocols like: Citrix, RDP, NX, Spice, VNC and SSH. Our goal is to deliver an operating system which works as a client for your existing shared/virtualized desktop infrastructure. Thin client model improves the security, simplifies the maintenance and allows to reduce hardware costs and energy consumption as all desktop applications are hosted on the server side.

Besides new system offering we have implemented some notable features in this release: Kiosk config can be hosted directly on Porteus Kiosk Server - no need to use 3rd party web hosting service anymore. Clients must be configured with 'kiosk_config=' parameter and utilize 'server://config_name' protocol. Its possible to define custom persistence level for the guest's home folder. Password manager allows remembering logins and passwords to the websites. Default search engine for the browser has been changed to the Google. Its still possible to set DuckDuckGo engine if privacy is a top priority. Linux kernel used in our system can be tweaked with the help of additional kernel parameters. Its possible to control the slide duration (time between loading new image) for the screensaver slideshow. Improved 'managed bookmarks' function allows to define the bookmark name. DMPS is no longer forced to turn off the monitor after 10 minutes of inactivity and you may set the time after which the monitor goes off. Session idle parameter will restart whole session (Xorg) for the variants Cloud and ThinClient. Added option to preserve persistent partition, perform a quick format or completely erease the hard drive before the installation is started. Enabled bootsplash for the post installation ISO. Many other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 4.1.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features and wizard usability improvements implemented in Porteus Kiosk 4.1.0 Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 4th of September 2016

Please find below an overview of new features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through the remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 4.1.0.

1) Kiosk config can be hosted directly on Porteus Kiosk Server variant "Premuim". In order to take advantage of this feature the clients must be configured with 'server://config_name' protocol. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: kiosk_config.





2) Its possible to define custom persistence level for the guest's home folder. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: persistence.





3) Password manager allows remembering logins and passwords to the websites. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: password_manager.





4) Default search engine for the browser has been changed to the Google although its still possible to set DuckDuckGo if privacy is your top priority. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: search_engine.





5) Linux kernel used in our system can be tweaked with the help of the kernel parameters. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: kernel_parameters.





6) Its possible to control the slide duration (time between loading new image) for the screensaver slideshow. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: slide_duration.





7) Managed bookmarks allows to define the bookmark name. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: managed_bookmarks.





8) DMPS is no longer forced to turn off the monitor after 10 minutes of inactivity and you may define the time after which the monitor goes off. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: dpms_idle.





9) Session idle parameter will restart whole session (Xorg) for the variants Cloud and ThinClient. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: session_idle.







First run wizard new feature:

Added option to preserve persistent partition, perform a quick format or completely erease the hard drive before the installation:





Porteus Kiosk 4.1.0 release is almost ready :)



Porteus Kiosk variant "ThinClient" is available Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 6th of July 2016

I'm happy to announce our new project: Porteus Kiosk variant "ThinClient".

Web applications are the future although we feel there is still a room for improvements in this area. In some cases users need an access to a complicated application which is heavy on resourceses (Photoshop, CAD, Office suite) and cant be handled by the web technologies yet. We have decided to launch another project which takes advantage of the

Web applications are the future although we feel there is still a room for improvements in this area. In some cases users need an access to a complicated application which is heavy on resourceses (Photoshop, CAD, Office suite) and cant be handled by the web technologies yet. We have decided to launch another project which takes advantage of the Thin client model where "fat" server hosts all the desktop applications for the "thin" client PC. Thin client deployments have many advantages: improve security, allow to reduce costs and simplify maintenance. We plan to add more applications and features to "ThinClient" variant in the future. Support for the SPICE protocol is already on the TODO list. Please do not hesitate to contact us and suggest what else could be added to default image.

Please have a look on our "ThinClient" document to find more about this system: link. As usual - "ThinClient" installation ISO can be downloaded from our download page.

Have fun!



Porteus Kiosk variant "Cloud" just launched Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 25th of July 2016

Yes - we have a new family member!

Less restrictive than Kiosk and offering functionalities which (for technical reasons) cant be implemented easily in standard Kiosk image. Volume control, unlocked downloads and removable devices mounted with write access are one of them.

Less restrictive than Kiosk and offering functionalities which (for technical reasons) cant be implemented easily in standard Kiosk image. Volume control, unlocked downloads and removable devices mounted with write access are one of them. Variant "Cloud" introduced new configuration parameters which are non common for kiosk type of operating systems: full persistence for user profile and password manager. If you use them for kiosk (system placed in public areas) then please be especially careful. There will be more features added to the "Cloud" system in the future. We are sure there are shortcomings and we count on your feedback in order to improve this offering.

Please have a look on our "Cloud" document to find more about this system: link. "Cloud" installation ISO can be downloaded from our download page.

Thank you!



Porteus Kiosk 4.0.0 has been released! Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 30th of May 2016

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 4.0.0 is now available for download. New version sums all the development which happened in the last 3 months and which can be tracked with details in the changelog to the Porteus Kiosk 'automatic updates' service.

Linux kernel has been updated to version 4.4.11, Mozilla Firefox to version 45.1.1 ESR and Google Chrome to version 50.0.2661.102. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20160528: link.

Important note: Google dropped support for 32 bit Chrome browser and we have decided to follow this path. Porteus Kiosk version 4.0.0 has kernel and userland compiled for x86_64 architecture exclusively. Current and future releases of our system wont support 32bit PCs anymore. If your kiosk does not have 64bit capable CPU then you still will be able to install last release in 32bit line: Porteus Kiosk 3.7.0.

Here is an overview of the most notable features introduced in this release: Added support for setting default microphone in case you have multiple capture devices in the system. Its possible to download screensaver slideshow ZIP archive every X minutes. This is useful if you need to update the slideshow often and want to do this quickly without rebooting the kiosk. Import certificates function has been extended to support also Citrix Receiver certificates. Added 'launch network wizard' applet to the first run wizard which allows to cancel waiting on the connection and repeat network setup procedure. /media location is displayed in the filepicker left side panel so its easier to find where removable media were mounted. Fallback to 'uvesafb' driver for boot splash when native framebuffer driver is not available. Fixed installation on SD cards which broke after switching to the GRUB bootloader. Disabled 'horizontal overscroll' in Chrome as this feature may cause privacy concerns. Many other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 4.0.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features and wizard usability improvements implemented in Porteus Kiosk 4.0.0 Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 28th of May 2016

See below to find about new features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through the remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 4.0.0.

1) Set the default microphone in case you have multiple capture devices in the system. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: default_microphone.





2) Its possible to download screensaver slideshow archive every X minutes. This is useful if you update the slideshow often and want to do this quickly without rebooting the system. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: screensaver_archive_update.





3) Import certificates function got updated again - now it supports also Citrix Receiver certificates. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: import_certificates.







First run wizard usability improvements:

1) Added 'launch network wizard' applet to the welcome wizard which allows to cancel waiting on the connection and repeat network setup procedure:





2) You may record a message to test selected capture device before kiosk installation:





Porteus Kiosk 4.0.0 release is getting really close :)



64bit architecture is the future. Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 11th of April 2016

Porteus Kiosk 3.7.0 release removed support for ancient i486 CPUs. Few months later we found that Google no longer supports Chrome browser on 32bit Linux distros: link. We have decided to move forward and make an entire switch to 64bit architecture for our Server and kiosk client systems to avoid similar surprises in the future.

Reasons: Google Chrome in version above 48.x supports 64bit architecture only. 64bit kernel can address more than 4GB of RAM and fully utilize instructions of modern CPUs. Userland compiled for 64bits is faster than 32bit one: link Gentoo 64bit version is more popular than 32bit which means better support from upstream (software bugs are reported and fixed faster).

Next Porteus Kiosk release will support 64bit architecture only. If your PCs do not have 64bit capable CPU then you still will be able to install last kiosk release in 32bit line: Porteus Kiosk 3.7.0. Please mind that 32bit Porteus Kiosk is no longer developed. It may get bugfixes and new features only through the customized builds service.

Porteus Kiosk Server and kiosks signed to the automatic updates service will receive 64bit upgrade seamlessly during next system update.

If you use the Server in version "Premium" then its highly recommended to switch your kiosk clients to 64bit version otherwise 'sync local and remote folder' function will stop working. Other Server features should work as normal with 32bit clients. In order to get an early access to 64bit client version please query support@porteus-kiosk.org.

Speed improvement in 64bit version is noticeable for the whole system. In next release your hardware will be utilized fully with Porteus Kiosk!



Porteus Kiosk 3.7.0 has been released! Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 29th of February 2016

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 3.7.0 is now available for download. New version sums all the development which happened in the last 3 months and which can be tracked with details in the changelog to the Porteus Kiosk 'automatic updates' service.

Linux kernel has been updated to version 4.4.3, Mozilla Firefox to version 38.6.1 ESR and Google Chrome to version 47.0.2526.111. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20160228: link. We have moved early to the kernel 4.4.x LTS line as we need better support for PCs powered by the Intel Skylake processors. Please note that Kernel and userland packages are compiled for i586 architecture, that means Porteus Kiosk does not support i486 CPUs anymore.

Here is an overview of the most notable features introduced in this release: Added support for RTC wake alarm which allows powering up the kiosk at certain hour:minute within each day of the week. PC motherboard must support this feature and 'Wake up events' must be enabled in the BIOS/EFI firmware in order to get this function working properly. Its possible to protect the kiosk or server session with a password. Only authorized users can access the browser/administration panel and use the system. Zoom controls and "pinch to zoom" touch gesture can be disabled to prevent the users from changing zoom level in the browser. Added support for running custom command during system startup. It can be used for various purposes, e.g. configuring the touchpad, rsyncing offline content, displaying kiosk IP address. In case of problems with the display its possible to use alternate 2D DDX driver: modesetting or vesa. Import certificates function can load certificates directly from .crt and .pem files. Porteus Kiosk Server version "Premium" can be customized through the Server Wizard. Disabled system messages to make the kiosk booting process quieter. Warnings and errors are displayed only when something goes wrong. Notifications are displayed when kiosk reconfigures/upgrades itself. Full system debranding is possible through the customized builds service. Kiosk installation/reconfiguration/upgrades are faster as 'dd' uses 1MB for the block size. Burning is also more reliable due to checksum verification performed when installation is finished. Added statically linked SSL helper to the initrdpxe.xz component which allows downloading kiosk config or modules from SSL protected sites during PXE boot. Many other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 3.7.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in following news post: news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 3.7.0 Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 26th of February 2016

Presented below is an overview of new features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through the remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 3.7.0.

Its possible to setup a RTC wake alarm to power up the kiosk at certain hour:minute within each day of the week. PC motherboard must support this feature and 'Wake up events' must be enabled in the BIOS/EFI firmware in order to get this function working properly. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: rtc_wake.





You can now protect the kiosk or server session with a password. Only authorized users can access the browser/administration panel and use the system. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: session_password.





To prevent the users from changing zoom level in the browser you can disable zoom controls. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: disable_zoom_controls.





We have an API to run custom command during system startup. It can be used for various purposes, e.g.: configuring the touchpad, rsyncing offline content, displaying current kiosk IP address. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: run_command.





In case of problems with the display you can use alternate 2D DDX driver: modesetting or vesa. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: gpu_driver.





Import certificates function can load certificates directly from files. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: import_certificates.





Porteus Kiosk 3.7.0 is approaching.



Porteus Kiosk 3.6.0 has been released! Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 30th of November 2015

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 3.6.0 is now available for download. New version sums all the development which happened in the last 3 months and which can be tracked with details in the changelog to the Porteus Kiosk 'automatic updates' service.

Linux kernel has been updated to version 4.1.13, Mozilla Firefox to version 38.4.0 ESR and Google Chrome to version 46.0.2490.86. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20151128: link.

Here is a short overview of the most notable features introduced in this release: Implemented support for associating the kiosk clients with Porteus Kiosk Server - our brand new operating system which allows monitoring, accessing and managing the clients even if they are placed behind a NAT, proxy or firewall. Added support for injecting or replacing default browser preferences with a text file hosted on the network. For Firefox browser you may use all preferences listed in "about:config". All supported Chrome policies can be found here: link. Online video file can be used as a screensaver instead of the 'Ripples' screensaver or the slideshow. Added support for session persistence which prevents wiping user data during browser restarts. Right mouse click state (enabled/disabled) can be controlled through the wizard. Its possible to share kiosk printer in the network so other PCs could use it. Added opensource 3D drivers for playing online games and other WebGL usage. Enabled mp4 (h264 codec) playback in the html5 "video" tag by default in the Firefox browser. Added support for remote management when kiosk is booted over the network. Introduced support for local scripts which should be run once networking is initialized and during kiosk shutdown. System displays a warning when battery reaches 10% and repeats it every 60 secs until AC is connected. Increased Kiosk Wizard window size to 800x600 resolution. Many other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kiosk 3.6.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in these news posts: news and news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 3.6.0 Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 28th of November 2015

Here is our usual overview of new features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through the remote kiosk config in upcoming Porteus Kiosk version 3.6.0.

Implemented support for Porteus Kiosk Server which allows monitoring, accessing and managing the clients even if they are placed behind a NAT, proxy or firewall. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameters: kiosk_server, client_id.





Added support for injecting or replacing default browser preferences with a text file hosted on the network. For Firefox you may use all preferences listed in "about:config", Chrome policies can be found here: link. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: browser_preferences.





Online video file can be used as a screensaver instead of the 'Ripples' screensaver or the slideshow. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: screensaver_video.





Added support for session persistence which prevents wiping user data during browser restarts. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: persistence.





Right mouse click state (enabled/disabled) can be controlled through the wizard. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: right_mouse_click.





Its possible to share kiosk printer in the network so other PCs could use it. Feature can be controlled in the remote config by following parameter: share_printer.





Porteus Kiosk 3.6.0 is nearly ready for the release!



First snapshot of Porteus Kiosk Server is live! Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 8th of November 2015

We have just released a beta image of the Porteus Kiosk Server operating system. Please mind that kiosk ISOs available on our download page and labelled as '3.6.0_Beta' are for testing purposes only and should never be used in a production.

If you want to become a beta tester then please install the server ISO in a network location accessible by the kiosk clients. Next step is to install standard 3.6.0_Beta ISO and activate 'Porteus Kiosk Server' option in the wizard to associate clients with the server:







Please have a look on our server document (still draft) to find more details: link. Both images: server and the client can be downloaded from our download page.

Please report bugs and suggestions to support@porteus-kiosk.org email address. We are waiting on your feedback :)



Porteus Kiosk Server - overview of the main features Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 29th of October 2015

I'm happy to break the news that Porteus Kiosk Server is currently at the testing stage and should be ready for production around December or January 2016. Next kiosk release may be delayed a bit as our main focus is on the Server side at the moment. Main feature of our new system is Administration Panel which allows accessing and managing kiosks which are placed in a remote locations.

Once server and clients are up and running then SSL tunnel is created between them to allow communication throug the SSH and VNC protocols (which are embedded in the SSL). Our goal is to access the kiosks even if they are placed behind the NAT, proxy or firewall.

Porteus Kiosk Server will be offered in two versions: Basic and Premium. Basic version is meant to be available for free while Premium one requires a paid subscription. Administration Panel supports different number of functions depending on version which you select during the installation.

Here is the list of the functions which are implemented in the Administration Panel so far: a) Monitoring which kiosks are online b) Displaying client details: system version, browser, MAC address, PCID, IP address, hostname c) Performing actions on the client side: - Wake On LAN - Connect to the client through the VNC protocol (connection can be view only or interactive) - Connect to the client through the SSH protocol - Mount remote filesystem locally. This is useful if you want to quickly edit file on the kiosk side or copy small files. - NEW: sync local and remote folder. This is useful if you want to update many files at once (offline website, screensaver pictures or video). - Restart browser, restart whole session (GUI) - Reboot or shutdown the client - Update homepage temporarily (if you want to make the change permanent then you should use remote config) - Generate debug log

All actions can be performed on multiple clients with a single mouse click. There will be other functions implemented as the time goes. Pushing kiosk ISO updates may be one of them. We are waiting on your feedback to find what is really needed.

Server itself supports following functions which are different from the standard kiosk: a) Persistence for client data and user made startup scripts (so its possible to for example mount NFS share during boot) b) Full VirtualBox integration with seamless mode, shared clipboard and shared folder. Server could be installed in VirtualBox or on a real hardware depending how many clients connects to it (performance wise). c) Bottom panel with the browser and terminal access

Please have a look on the short video overview of the Administration Panel posted on our Youtube channel:





Work is in progress so please stay tuned for news.



Kiosk configuration parameters Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 28th of October 2015

Since last week Porteus Kiosk configuration parameters are available on our website: link. API documentation is especially useful if you manage your kiosks remotely. There is no need to boot the kiosk instalaltion ISO and run the wizard if you want to add new or change existing parameters. From now on you can find all necessary information online.

Please mind that some parameters require others to work (child needs parent), while other parameters may block (deactivate) other functions. There are also cases when certain parameter forces value of other parameters. Please read the parameter description carefully and use the kiosk wizard if you are unsure about correct value syntax or general configuration rules.

Thank you.



Porteus Kiosk 3.5.0 has been released! Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 2nd of September 2015

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 3.5.0 is now available for download. New version sums all the development which happened in the last 3 months and which can be tracked with details in the changelog to the Porteus Kiosk 'automatic updates' service.

Linux kernel has been updated to version 4.1.6, Mozilla Firefox to version 38.2.1 ESR and Google Chrome to version 44.0.2403.157. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20150830: link.

Here is a short overview of the most notable features introduced in this release: Implemented support for nested configurations in remote management. Added support for managed bookmarks which allows accessing predefined set of webpages. SSL certificates can be imported automatically during kiosk boot from provided URLs. Slideshow of images can be used as a screensaver. Video outputs can be disabled completely or set in certain position to create for example 'video wall' for digital signage. Touchscreen calibration can be performed directly through the kiosk wizard. Implemented support for "static IP to address mappings" to resolve problems with non fully qualified domain names. Mac address or hostname can be appended to the homepage url for kiosk tracking purposes. Homepage check function ensures accessibility of the homepage prior to launching the browser. Predefined notification message is displayed when when the homepage is not available. Added support for restarting the browser periodically when user activity is not detected. Mouse cursor can be hidden after certain number of seconds. Silent printing prevents the users from changing printing related settings. Added support for proxy exceptions. Many other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kioks 3.5.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in these news posts: news and news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 3.5.0 Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 30th of August 2015

Here is an overview of new features which can be controlled through the kiosk wizard or through the remote kiosk config in version 3.5.0 of our operating system.

Managed bookmarks allows to display bookmarks bar in Chrome/Firefox with predefined set of webpages. Webpage title should be filled automatically for provided URLs although generic favicon is used until user clicks on the bookmark:





SSL certificates can be imported to the certificates database prior to browser launch. Please remember that self-signed certificates or invalid ones are not supported and must be added manually to the ISO as an exceptions:





Instead of using our default 'Ripples' screensaver its possible to use images slideshow. JPEG and PNG images should be packed into ZIP archive (other archives are supported) which must be kept on your server all the time as it will be downloaded during each kiosk boot:





Screen related settings (resolution, refresh rate, brightness, rotation) are handled now through a single window. Its possible to disable unneded video outputs or set them in certain position to create e.g. 'video wall' for digital signage:





Touchscreen support has improved a lot in 3.5.0 release. Touch position will be rotated automatically to the position of the screen, its also possible to perform touch calibration directly from the wizard:





Its possible to add static IP to address mappings to the /etc/hosts file through the wizard. This feature should resolve the problems with accessing non fully qualified domain names like http://domain.local





Kiosk Wizard allows appending specific string to the homepage. It can be either MAC address or the hostname. String will appear only in the server logs and wont modify the homepage URL. This is useful for kiosks tracking purposes.

You may also enable the homepage check. When activated the system will make sure that homepage is accessible before launching the browser. You have an ability to define a custom message for the case when homepage is not available:





By default the kiosk will restart the browser only once when user activity is not detected. This is to save on CPU cycles. In some cases it may be necessary to keep restarting the browser every X minutes to refresh the page content (browser is still restarted only when there is no user activity detected):





Mouse cursor may be disabled permamently or get hidden after X seconds of mouse inactivity:





Silent printing is useful in case when we dont want the users to change any printing related settings:





Proxy exceptions are respected now for defined domains and IPs:





Porteus Kiosk 3.5.0 is getting really close to the release!



Wizard usability improvements for Porteus Kiosk 3.5.0 Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 29th of August 2015

Kiosk Wizard in version 3.5.0 gained important usability improvments presented below.

Its possible to setup keyboard layout early as the very first step of configuring your kiosk PC. Selected keyboard layout is applied in real time and also injected as parameter to the kiosk config. This feature comes handy when your keyboard layout is different than english (US):





Wifi MAC address is displayed directly in the wizard. Some wireless networks are filtered through the MAC and this feature allows you to add kiosk to the filter without much hassle. In some cases its necessary to setup hardware clock to the current date/time before making successfull connection and wizard has been updated to allow this:





You can test default sound card, sound volume level, shutdown menu, screen settings and screensaver ripples/slideshow before creating final configuration:

















Printers list has been split per manufacturers brand to allow finding certain models quickly. Its also possible to display all available models as it was before:





Its possible to generate short system debug log from the wizard UI. It should cover most of the cases when our help is needed:







New features implemented in kiosk 3.5.0 are coming next!



Porteus Kiosk 3.4.0 has been released Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 1st of June 2015

I'm pleased to announce that Porteus Kiosk 3.4.0 is now available for download. New version sums all the development which happened in the last 3 months and which can be tracked with details in the changelog to the Porteus Kiosk 'automatic updates' service.

Linux kernel has been updated to version 3.18.14 and supports much wider range of the hardware including x86 compatible tablets and embedded/industrial devices. Default ISO size has been reduced to 36 MB as the browser component is not present in it and must be not downloaded from the network during installation. Packages from the userland are upgraded to portage snapshot tagged on 20150530: link.

Here is a short overview of the most notable features introduced in this release: Added initial support for Google Chrome as an alternative browser to Mozilla Firefox. Please mind that supported features vary between the browsers. Updated UEFI component to support PCs equipped with 32bit EFI firmware. Kiosk Wizard offers a possibility of loading and saving the kiosk config on removable devices. Kiosk ISO can be saved on removable device rather than uploaded to the online storage in case when generated ISO is meant to run on a different PC. System will discover and scale smaller screen automatically in case when second monitor is connected and there is a mismatch in resolution between internal/external video outputs. Optical media formatted with ISO9660 and UDF filesystems are automounted when 'removable devices' support is enabled. Allowed powering off the PC by pressing the power button if 'shutdown menu' feature is not enabled in the wizard. If user has a physical access to the PC case then can force kiosk shutdown by holding the button for 5 secs. Its better to power off the machine gently. Disabled 'search for text when i start typing' in Firefox preferences so kiosk can work with bar code scanners out of the box. Switched to 'ripples' screensaver which looks nicer and does not leave any distortions on the screen when running for longer periods. Custom resolution is set on all active displays and not just the first one. Many other bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete Porteus Kioks 3.4.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in these news posts: news and news. Kiosk ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



Wizard updates for Porteus Kiosk 3.4.0 Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 30th of May 2015

New kiosk release brings only two but very important features implemented on the wizard level. First one is a possiblity of selecting an alternative browser to Mozilla Firefox! Its always good to have a choice and Firefox is lacking in some areas like audio/video or html5 support. Google Chrome is the browser which suppors both very well.

There is a trade off: Google Chrome does not support the same number of features implemented in the wizard and can't be locked down as tight as the Mozilla browser. In my opinion Firefox fits better the kiosk purposes but Chrome comes useful in some particular cases, especially when its navigation bar is disabled.

During installation the welcome wizard will let you choose your preferred browser:





Tip for advanced users: Browser preference is controlled by the 'browser=' parameter in the kiosk config. If you enable remote management during installation then is enough to update your remote kiosk config and replace 'browser=firefox' with 'browser=chrome' to switch between the applications.

Second important feature implemented in the wizard is the possibility of loading and saving the kiosk config on removable devices:









Moreover - its also possible to save the ISO generated by the wizard on the same removable device. This is an alternative to uploading the ISO to the online storage which could be confusing in some cases:





Tip for advanced users: Its possible to embedd the kiosk config in the instalaltion ISO and do not load it from removable media but directly from virtual filesystem. All what you need to do is to remaster the ISO you have downloaded from our website as per our documentation, create new module containing your kiosk config saved as /media/kiosk-config.txt, run the wizard and navigate to the settings page where you have to just press the 'Load config' button twice. This is the fastest way of configuring the kiosks in case of performing the large deployment without the central management feature enabled.



Welcome kernel 4.0! Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 29th of May 2015

As announced on our Twitter channel linux kernel 4.0.x has been approved for next kiosk release.

UPDATE: due to kernel regression discovered lately the kernel used for next kiosk release will be in version 3.18.14. Kernel config remains the same: extended support for tablets and embedded/industrial devices.

Upgraded kernel always brings new and updated drivers improving kiosk hardware compatibility. This particular update is important for embedded device owners as various subsystems specific for small form factor and industiral hardware like: GPIO, SPI, DMA Engine, PWM, etc ... have beed enabled in the kernel configuration. Earlier this month I have added 32bit EFI support to our UEFI component: link.

Result: it is possible to run the kiosk on x86 mini PCs like Zotac ZBOX pico or even Windows 8.1 tablets!





Next kiosk realease is nearly ready so please stay tuned for news.



Exploring new areas Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 5th of April 2015

As per rising customer demands Porteus Kiosk offers now possibility of advanced kiosk customizations.

Firefox as the only application available in kiosk was not enough in some scenarios and users constantly requested additional software to be added to the system. Handling applications like: LibreOffice, scanner GUI application, PDF reader, Skype, etc ... without an access to the bottom panel was not easy, if possible at all.

In some cases it was necessary to introduce a login manager to allow access to the kiosk for authorized users only or give an ability to start/close session on demand. Standard kiosk does not allow saving files on removable media as they would have to be ejected safely to prevent filesystem corruption. Keyboard shortcut for unmounting devices is not a straight forward solution and removing the media from firefox UI is not possible without additional 3rd party addons which I would like to avoid in kiosk. 'Eject removable media' button placed on a bottom panel resolves this issue perfectly. Advanced customizations brings many parameters which would have to be added to the kiosk config and making it over-complicated is not a good idea from the central management point of view.

Reasons mentioned above convinced me to extend 'customized builds' service by an advanced modifications section. Please have a look on the video showing such custom build in action: link. If you want to try a live demo then please download it from here: link.

If you are in need of advanced kiosk customizations then please do not hesitate to take advantage of the customized builds service.



Porteus Kiosk 3.3.0 has been released Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 2nd of March 2015

I'm happy to announce Porteus Kiosk 3.3.0 which is now available for download. This is a major kiosk release which brings a number of new features, package upgrades and security fixes. New version sums all the development which happened in the last 3 months and which can be tracked with details in the changelog of the Porteus Kiosk 'automatic updates' service.

Linux kernel has been updated to: 3.18.8 while Firefox sticks to the ESR channel which is intended for large organizations such as universities, governments and businesses and is numbered as 31.5.0. All packages from the userland which are living in the Gentoo stable branch are upgraded to the snapshot tagged on 20150301: link

Aside of the package upgrades Porteus Kiosk 3.3.0 brings exciting new features which are implemented in the kiosk wizard and the ISO itself. The most notable ones are: Introduced Central Management function which allows to remotely control multiple kiosk PCs from single configuration file stored on your server. Implemented support for WPA2 Enterprise (EAP-PEAP) wireless authentication method and 2G/3G dialup connections. Added support for automounting of removable devices formatted with FAT*, NTFS, XFS and ISO9660 filesystems. Implemented 'scheduled tasks' which allows to shutdown/reboot the PC or do any other atcion at certain day/hour/minute in the week. Added Citrix Receiver as additional kiosk component available for selection in the wizard. Added an option to allow popup windows in the browser by default. Its possible to disable 'private mode' for firefox so logins, passwords, cookies, caches, etc are saved during the session. Added an option to select default system soundcard. This feature comes useful for digital signage purposes when external display is connected to kiosk and you want to pass the sound through the HDMI or Display Port. Added support for automatic proxy configuration through the PAC files. Added possibility for setting custom NTP server which will be used for syncing PC hardware clock. Many bugfixes and improvements.

Please find complete 3.3.0 changelog under this address. Additional information about the release can be found in these news posts: news, news and news. ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

Please follow our Twitter channel and stay tuned for news from the project.



New features implemented in Porteus Kiosk 3.3.0 Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 1st of March 2015

Porteus Kiosk is growing very fast and keeping 6 months release schedule for major versions wont be the case anymore. I have decided to shorten development period to be able to deliver new updates more quickly. Here is an overview of some fresh stuff which will be available in 'soon to be released' Porteus Kiosk 3.3.0.

I'm happy to inform that our system supports now WPA/WPA2 Enterprise (EAP-PEAP) wireleass authentication method as well as wired/2G/3G dialup connections:









ISO9660 was the only supported filesystem in the system. This is going to change in 3.3.0 release as kiosk gained an ability to automount removable media formatted with FAT, NTFS or XFS:





Another nice addition is support for 'scheduled tasks' which allows to execute certain actions like system reboot, shutdown, firefox restart, syncing of local content, etc at specified time in a week:





Citrix Receiver plugin is now available as additional component in the wizard bringing remote applications straight to your desktop:





You will have the possibility to select default sound card in the system. This is useful for kiosk digital signage deplayments where sound should be passed to external TV through the HDMI/Display Port connections:





Corporate environments usually have strict firewall rules so now you can set NTP server different than default:





Many users asked for this feature - possibility of controlling the popup windows behaviour:





In some cases default kiosk rules regarding privacy are too paranoid so now you have an option to disable 'private mode' for firefox. Use with caution:





Added support for automatic proxy configuration through the PAC files:





There are many smaller changes and improvements coming to 3.3.0 release. Detailed changelog will be posted shortly togheder with the release announcement.



Central Management for Porteus Kiosk Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 2nd of Feburary 2015

Significant achievement has been accomplished in Porteus Kiosk development: next release will bring central management to our system!

Please mind that this is not a fully fledged 'central management' feature as it was initially planned but rather a simplified version which should be still suitable for majority of companies and institutions using our system. I'm happy to inform that this feature will be available without a charge.

Development version of the wizard has been updated with new function already and intensive testing is in progress:





If you are in need for remote kiosk management solution then please have a look on the document explaining in details how this feature works: link.



January updates Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 4th of January 2015

Happy New Year! We are sure that Porteus Kiosk project becomes stronger during the next 12 months. New features are planned and some are even implemented but stays hidden till new kiosk release is out :)

As mentioned in the 'automatic updates' changelog - Porteus Kiosk grows rapidly in popularity. Additional users brings the need of better hardware support and thats why we have decided to introduce 'debug mode' in kiosk. You may enable it in the wizard but please do it only when you seeks the help from us:





Another good news is that Porteus Kiosk has been added to the DistroWatch list so our release announcements will be posted also there. You may find our profile under this link.

We have also opened a Twitter account to let you stay up to date with latest news from the project. Please join our channel and stay in touch with us. You may find Twitter and YouTube channel links in the updated website footer:







Porteus Kiosk 3.2.0 has been released Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 8th of December 2014

I'm happy to announce Porteus Kiosk 3.2.0 which is now available for download. This is a major kiosk release which brings a number of new features, package upgrades and security fixes. New version sums all the development which happened in the last 6 months and which can be tracked with details in the changelog of the Porteus Kiosk 'automatic updates' service.

Linux kernel has been updated to latest LTS: 3.14.26 while Firefox sticks to the ESR channel which is intended for large organizations such as universities, governments and businesses and is numbered as 31.3.0. All packages from the userland which are living in the Gentoo stable branch are upgraded to the snapshot tagged on 20141204: link

Aside of the package upgrades Porteus Kiosk 3.2.0 brings exciting new features which are implemented in the kiosk wizard and the ISO itself. The most notable ones are: Brand new and developed in house 'URL filter' which should resolve a demand for blacklisting or whitelisting certain domains and IPs. Added support for 'Wake On LAN' which allows PCs to be powered up remotely. From now on all kiosks can be controlled from a single machine in your office. Please mind that this is only a first step in our journey to central management service which hopefully will be ready for next major kiosk release. Kiosk has improved in the 'digital signage' area: wizard 3.2.0 allows to disable input devices completely and rotate the screen in all supported directions. When booting is finished system spins down all the block media (hard drives, CDs, usb sticks, SD/MMC cards) to save energy and make the kiosk environment friendly. Improved 'automatic updates' subscription which now can be performed directly on the wizard level. You still have possibility to contact our sales department directly to negotiate all the conditions of the subscription. UEFI component has been officially approved so if your PC is shipped with an EFI firmware then please download UEFI varianf of the ISO. To ensure maximum flexibility we have added and option to the wizard which allows to switch between the BIOS/EFI variants when performing the kiosk installation. You can convert BIOS image into UEFI one and vice versa. Extended keyboard layouts with support for variants and doubled the number of printing drivers available in the kiosk wizard database. Pretty much every printer out there should be supported by Porteus Kiosk.

This is not a full list of changes, please find 3.2.0 changelog under this address. Extra information can be found in these two news posts: news and news. ISOs can be downloaded from our download page.

New features are queueing on my TODO list already so next relase should be as much exciting.



Latest additions to Porteus Kiosk 3.2.0 Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 2nd of December 2014

Two new features landed for Porteus Kiosk 3.2.0:

a) In case when secondary keyboard layout was enabled in the kiosk wizard there is possibility to toggle between the layouts with a keyboard shortcut. In kiosk 3.2.0 there will be notification displayed that keyboard layout was switched. Notification will also inform how to toggle between the layouts. This should prevent situations when kiosk user changed the layout by mistake and do not known how to go back the the previous configuration. Please mind that toggling shortcut has changed from 'Atl+Shift' to 'Ctrl+Space' due to technical reasons:





b) With kiosk 3.2.0 it will be much easier to subscribe to the 'automatic updates' service. There is no need to collect MAC addresses anymore - all what you have to do is to activate 'automatic updates' option in the wizard, choose your subscription period and make a payment directly on the PayPal site. PC ID will be automatically added to the PayPal notification which is send to both sides as a confirmation of the payment for the service:





No more features planned for Porteus Kiosk 3.2.0 - lets relase it to the wild!



New features implemented in the upcoming Porteus Kiosk 3.2.0 release Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 22nd of November 2014

New major kiosk release is planned for early December. It will bring all the features developed in the last 6 months, package upgrades and fixes to bugs discovered since the kiosk 3.1 release. Here is an overview of features implemented on the wizard level.

1) Primary and secondary keyboard layout functions have been extended with layout variants:





2) List of supported printers grown twice due to integrated dymo-cups-drivers, splix, xerox-drivers and hplip packages. We have over 3400 drivers in the database which are ready to be used in kiosk. Please mind that some printers may be supported by two drivers: in the picture below you will se that model 'HP LaserJet 1015' can work with gutenprint or hpcups driver.

Some HP printers require proprietary plugin and due to technical complications these can be supported only through the commercial Customized Builds service. Full list of printers which require proprietary plugin can be found up here: link





3) IP filter function (iptables based) has been replaced with new blacklist/whitelist option which has several advantages over it's predecessor: a) it works :) b) it does not depend on the firewall, there is not need to remember whitelisting the gateway, etc ... c) bases on a URL keyword so is very flexible d) 'access denied' picture which contain Porteus logo can be replaced with your own image showing general rules, which sites are whitelisted, etc ... (ISO must be customized manually for this)





4) Wake On LAN function allows the kiosk PCs to be powered up remotely:





5) Input devices can be disabled to prevent user interaction with kiosk:





6) It is possible to rotate the screen on left, right or by a 180 degrees:





7) Sound level can be adjusted directly from the wizard. When set to '0' the sound is muted completely:





8) UEFI support ensures that Porteus Kiosk can be booted on any x86 compatible PC:





9) Kiosk wizard received refreshed and nicer icon theme:





Other functions and fixes not visible directly in the wizard can be tracked in the automatic updates changelog. I'm sure that Porteus Kiosk 3.2 will be an exciting release!



Porteus Kiosk 3.1.3 has been released Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 16th of November 2014

I'm pleased to announce Porteus Kiosk 3.1.3 as a third and the last bugfix release to the kiosk 3.1.

Next version will mark a new line: 3.2.x and bring upgraded kernel, userland (firefox 31.x ESR with Australis interface plus all available packages) and new features implemented on the kiosk wizard level. Short description of new features introduced in upcoming Porteus Kiosk 3.2 will be posted on the news page.

Full changelog for 3.1.3 release can be found under this address: link ISO can be downloaded from our download page: link



Porteus Kiosk 3.1.2 has been released Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 17th of October 2014

I'm pleased to announce Porteus Kiosk 3.1.2 as second bugfix release to the kiosk 3.1 line.

New version looks after various kiosk ISO related issues, brings 3 months free trial to the 'automatic updates' service and adds initial UEFI support which is not fully implemented in the ISO yet. New features, as well as kernel and userand updates (including latest mozilla-firefox-31.0 ESR) are not included in this release but are available in the automatic updates channel for those who are willing to subscribe to this service.

Full changelog for this release can be found under this address: link ISO can be downloaded from our download page: link



Extended printing support Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 18th of September 2014

Printing support has be extended significantly in the latest push to the 'automatic updates' channel: Printing support has be extended significantly in the latest push to the 'automatic updates' channel: link gutenprint package (our main source of drivers) got upgraded to version 5.2.10 and following packages has been added to kiosk: dymo-cups-drivers, splix, and xerox-drivers. As per infrastructure updates it's now much easier to add new packages containing drivers (or even single PPD files) to kiosk so it's probably not our last word in this matter.

727 new models has been added to the database which means that number of supported printers increased from 1756 to 2483. List of new additions can be found under this address: link

I would like to add more printers to the set so if someone owns a model which is supported exclusively by the 'hplip' package then please contact me through support@porteus-kiosk.org and i'll provide kiosk ISO image prepared for testing with the HP printers.



UEFI support for Porteus Kiosk Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 31st of August 2014

UEFI enabled ISO of Porteus Kiosk can be found under this address: download: link removed - please upgrade kiosk to latest release which has UEFI support included.

This is fully functional 3.1.3 release with integrated UEFI component which should be bootable on UEFI and BIOS machines. Please give it a shot and report any issues with it to support@porteus-kiosk.org. If not issues will be reported then hybrid (UEFI/BIOS) ISO will become default for next kiosk release.

Please mind that when manually remastering UEFI enabled ISO you have to run 'isohybrid' command with the '-u' flag in order to make usb stick bootable on UEFI PCs.



Free trial for the 'automatic updates' service Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 29th of August 2014 (updated: 18th September 2014)

I'm pleased to inform that Porteus Kiosk offers now a 3 months free trial for the automatic updates service. To activate the trial it's enough to choose a 'free trial' option in the kiosk wizard (kiosk 3.1.1 ISO and wizard were updated for this feature on 18/09/2014, please downoad the ISO once again if your do not have 'free trial' option in the wizard):





There is no need for sending us the MAC addressees for activating the trial. After installation the kiosk PCs will reboot and upgrade automatically to the very last version from the 'automatic updates' channel.

After 3 months the trial expires and at this stage you have to buy the subscription or reconfigure kiosk to disable automatic updates service. Please mind that each PCs can be signed only once for the trial.



Porteus Kiosk - central management made easy Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 17th of August 2014

Some companies are interested in deploying Porteus Kiosk on a large number of PCs and are querying us if there is possibility of a remote and central administration of our operating system.

So far the only way of doing it was to enable ssh access in the kiosk wizard and performing each task individually on every kiosk PC. This method is not efficient: requires additional time, effort and can cause troubles for people not familiarized with linux command line.

We would like to change this and introduce a paid 'administration panel' application with user friendly interface (similar to our kiosk wizard) which would make management of multiple kiosk PCs far easier. Our plan is to sell a VDI images with modified version of kiosk preinstalled which would run administration panel upon start and let you perform all the management tasks through it.

Why VDI images? they can be used on every PC with VirtualBox/Vmware installed no matter of operating system being used: Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris, etc. virtual session can be suspended/resumed within a seconds so administration panel can be active only for the time of doing management tasks no need to sacrifice a PC unit for running Linux designed just for the Porteus Kiosk administration persistence is needed to keep client database up to date

Why standalone application and not remote management done in the browser over http://porteus-kiosk.org website? privacy of our clients is the top priority so no single data should be transported through our servers central management unit is designed to work on the customer side, even with closed networks which are lacking internet access

What about the pricing for this application? no pricing list ready yet

Requirements: VirtualBox/Vmware or any other virtualization software which can run VDI images active network connection between management unit and kiosk clients ssh access enabled on the client side (all actions will be performed through the ssh protocol)

Here is the list of features planned for the administration panel (everything will be done remotely over the network): possibility of assigning kiosk to a groups for easier management starting the kiosks through the 'Wake On Lan' function remote kiosk reconfiguration (X11 forward function or vnc - need to find which works better): you will be able to put the kiosk in the 'administration mode', launch kiosk wizard, configure kiosk again and burn on selected device possibility of changing the firefox homepage temporarily without burning new kiosk iso (reboot will still bring defaults) restarting of firefox, Xorg, the PCs itself putting the PCs into the sleep/suspend/standby state shutting down the PCs displaying the log files (currently only /var/log/Xorg.0.log is present in kiosk but could be more, ie: syslog or iptables log to catch security events) monitoring CPU/RAM/swap/filesystem usage and hardware temperatures/health condition other features?

We understand that corporate environments are very often locked and restricted so thinking how to handle the server (kiosk management unit) and the client (kiosk PC) communication in the less problematic way. Probably some VPN or SSL tunneling will be required to avoid NAT/proxy/firewall issues. Need to investigate this further.

Please let us know if you would be interested in such application and what other functions could be added to the administration panel. You may use this forum thread or send your feedback directly to support@porteus-kiosk.org



Porteus Kiosk 3.1.1 has been released Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 5th of August 2014

I'm pleased to announce Porteus Kiosk 3.1.1 as a bugfix release to kiosk 3.1 line.

New version looks after wizard related issues and fixes some critical kiosk bugs which were discovered up to date. New features, as well as kernel and userland updates (including latest mozilla-firefox-31.0 ESR) are not included in this release but are available in the automatic updates channel for those who are willing to subscribe to this service.

Full changelog can be found under this address: link ISO can be downloaded from our download page: link



Firefox 31.0 ESR lands in the 'automatic updates' channel Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 27th of July 2014

New major Firefox ESR release has been pushed to the 'automatic updates' channel. Firefox 31.0 brings many new features and enhancements which can be tracked in official Mozilla release notes: 25.0 26.0 27.0 28.0 29.0 30.0 31.0

Biggest change which is visible straight when you start new firefox is completely new UI named Australis. It was not possible to accept Australis default look in our restricted kiosk so I have disabled access to sensitive areas of the browser (removed preferences/customization buttons and such) and made it looking similar to previous ESR version:







New firefox scores pretty well in the html5 test and has native support for VP8 and VP9 video codecs which should help in the web signage deployments:





Hopefully you will get use to the new firefox look pretty soon :) Hopefully you will get use to the new firefox look pretty soon :)



Porteus Kiosk deployments Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 23rd of July 2014

Porteus Kiosk is installed on thousands of PCs across the globe and serves for various purposes concentrated mainly around the web content delivery. Here are few pictures from successful deployments.

Porteus Kiosk works as a web access point in City Hall - Assen, Netherlands. Pictures by the courtesy of Mark Molema:









Jefferson Elementary and Remington Middle School in Franklin, Massachusetts, US. Porteus Kiosk is installed in the Nurse's office. When students are sick they can watch educational videos or play educational games.

Pictures by the courtesy of Dan Chase:







The Spånga Scout troop, with more than 400 members and located in Stockholm, use Porteus Kiosk as a remotely controlled note board in their hall where they have the weekly scout meetings. The main source of information for the scouts, their parents and leaders is the webpage but nowadays everything is more instant so a possibility to display important messages to everyone visiting the hall is very useful. The note board consists of a TV-set and a hidden, scrapped PC without keyboard or mouse, powered by Porteus Kiosk, set to display a fixed webpage which refresh every 5 minutes.

Pictures by the courtesy of Sven Jungmar:









Porteus Kiosk works as a web access point in Job Search Centre - Assen, Netherlands. Pictures by the courtesy of Mark Molema:









Porteus Kiosk provides internet access to the students of Rzeczpospolita Norwidowska school complex in Starachowka, Poland. Web content is filtered with the help of the OpenDNS service.

Pictures by the courtesy of Sebastian Radzio:









Visitor registration kiosk running Porteus Kiosk for a reception in Uppsala Municipality in Boländerna, Uppsala, Sweden. Implemented special label writer (in this case Dymo LabelWriter Duo) customization for firefox which runs smoothly. Connected to Internet (fixed start-page) via cable or wireless. USB drive is hidden behind reception and boots from hub with printer and mouse for single USB cable connection to the computer.

Picture by the courtesy of Martin Lumsby:





Visitor registration kiosk with similar setup on Uppsala City hall, currently running on 2 rightmost computers, 3 older installations with Windows awaits exchange to Porteus Kiosk. USB drive is locked in the bench in a hub like previous example. These printers are Dymo LabelWriter 450 which uses same driver / configuration so no extra settings is needed.

Pictures by the courtesy of Martin Lumsby:









Crystal Kids Youth Centre located in Edmonton, Alberta Canada operates a computer lab for use of the disadvantaged kids living in the Inner-City area in Edmonton. Crystal Kids is a community based provider of intervention and prevention services to some very at risk children. The project was to update an aging Windows 7 installation done in 2011 with an installation that would be more robust physically and more stable in the operating system area. The Centre received a donation of HP Compaq 8000 Elite USDT PC's and this small form factor enabled us to mount all the hardware on a ledge and enclose them inside Lexan locked cases. This was effective in securing the physical hardware and we were able to use the Porteus Kiosk OS to provide secure, stable access to the web for 4 of the workstations. The other 3 remained as Windows 7 machines to run PC based games.

Pictures by the courtesy of Colin Chong:











Porteus Kiosk goes green (environment friendly) Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 7th of July 2014

Those signed for kiosk's 'automatic updates' service got a decent update today.

First of all I have decided to upgrade to linux kernel 3.14.x line as it got a LTS status which means that will be supported for the next 2 years. It's a good time to switch to it now and in the future jump to next LST kernel whenever we decide that it's stable enough. New kernel means plenty of improvements which can be tracked in following articles: linux kernel 3.13 and linux kernel 3.14.

Secondly I have realized that Porteus Kiosk 3.1 release forced 'copy2ram' feature on all PCs. Copy to RAM is great as gives a nice speed boost to the kiosk, makes the system perfectly stable and totally independent from the booting media. Since kiosk does not rely on reading from the hard drives, usb sticks, SD/MMC cards then there is not point to keep these devices active. We can power off all the block media initialized by the kernel completely, reduce noise and heat produced by them (if any), save on energy bills and help the environment!

Here is an image of notification displayed when the 'power saving' function gets activated during boot:



After the notification is displayed you should hear your hard drives spinning down, the PC gets quieter and bit cooler. Another advantage is that the kiosk becomes automatically safer as devices and their nodes are removed completely from the system. Even after successful ssh password breakage (if someone enabled ssh server in the kiosk wizard) an attacker wont be able to wipe our hard drive with 'cat /dev/zero > /dev/sda' command as /dev/sda node does not exist anymore. It can also make your hardware life longer as devices are active only when the kiosk is booting (usually 30-50 seconds depending on hardware specification) and then are powered off for the rest of the session.

Please mind that 'power saving' feature is not activated when the kiosk was configured to use the swap partition as in this case removing the media would break the swap support. It still gets activated when zRAM was enabled in the wizard as in this case swap device is created in the PC memory and not on the hard drive.

Finally: this update brings usual bunch of security fixes (including important one for disabling 'Shift + left mouse button' click on hyperlinks) so please have a look on the 'automatic updates' chengelog for details: link



Proxy issues resolved Posted by Tomasz Jokiel - 14th of June 2014

Some users reported that the welcome wizard is not able to connect to the network when run behind a proxy. I have tried myself and found that this is the case when you select automatic IP configuration. This issue is fixed now.

The other problem was a proxy authentication which very often is required in restricted/corporate environments and was not implemented in the kiosk so far. I have found that wget utility (which we use in kiosk to download full wizard, additional modules and updates from our server) is able to perform a proxy authentication with the 'basic' method (but not digest, NTLM, SPIEGO, etc) so proxy authentication support has been added to the welcome wizard. If your proxy requires authentication then please enter the data in following format: USERNAME:PASSWORD@IPADDRESS:PORT.

Here is an example for kiosk:toor@192.168.1.1.10:3128





Two other issues were also resolved: Alt+Ctrl+Del combination will kill only previous instance of the 'kiosk shutdown' utility and not every gtkdialog application (like e.g. welcome wizard). Wifi interface will be always put up before scanning for available networks in the welcome wizard.

Changes mentioned above required an updates made to the core so i have uploaded a new spin of 3.1 kiosk release without making a version bump. If your network requires a proxy support then please download the ISO again from our download page.