Browser-based Operating System

Posted by Ross Peoples on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Ross Peoples
Published on 2010-05-11T17:17:18Z Indexed on 2010/05/11 17:25 UTC
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Filed under:

linux

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embedded

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firefox

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chrome

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operating-system

I have a bunch of touchscreen machines that I want to display a webpage on and have users interact with the webpage via the touchscreen. Right now, this is done with a full-blown OS with a browser set to run at startup. I think maybe the ideal solution is to use a Linux-based OS that boots up, starts X, then starts a web browser (Chrome, Firefox, or whatever) in full screen mode.

What kind of options do I have? I really want to avoid using a full-blown OS like I do now. It looks unprofessional and takes a while to boot up. I was thinking maybe Chrome OS or something, but I wouldn't know how to set it up for my purposes, since it's still designed to be used as a desktop OS instead of a kiosk-type OS.

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