Hello,

It's been a long long time since I have come here... Anyway unfortunately I have been working with Windows for the past 4 years, and I haven't been able to use Linux as much as I would like.

It's never too late, I hope ...

I would appreciate any help on getting a system to start up on KDE, automatically (without having to type in the login info) and run firefox at a specific page.

The run firefox at a specific time problem I think I can solve with a cron job, but the start up KDE (if it's even needed) part is the problem.

Well let me explain to you guys what I'm trying to accomplish, so maybe (most certainly) you will offer me a better, far more intelligent solution.

I need for the system to once the power is on, log in and start firefox on kiosk mode (fullscreen) at a specific web page. I got this working under windows using a firefox extension to hide the toolbar, and pressing F11, after I close firefox at fullscreen mode, the next time it runs automatically on fullscreen.

So under windows I created a small vbs script to first ping the address (check to see if it's online) and if the return is true runs firefox at that specific address. I got it working fine, the autologin problem was solved with Powertools for XP.

But as you all know Windows is not only unreliable but expensive and slower than Linux, that's precisely the reason why I need to migrated.

I would also appreciate some help on what distro to get, the easiest to set up the better.

Thank you! It's nice to be back here.

I like mandrake 10.1the best. It's alot easier to use then Suse 9.1 and runs faster. I know there many more distributions out there but i think mandrake is the best. It would be extremely easy to set it to automatically login. All you have to do is click on the control center and you'll see an icon there that says auto login. Just click on that and it asks you what user and what you what it to login to(kde, gnome,.......ect....). It also asks you in setup if you want to use auto login. I've never tried to get it to start a program up so i'm not sure how easy that is in mandrake.

MANDRAKE IS THE MOST USER FRIENDLY LINUX OS AVAILABLE

Thanks a lot, I guess the login part is solved

I was thinking about a cron job to run firefox on startup, maybe someone could give me another idea.

Also I heard there is a programmed shutdown in Linux as well, I would need that for sure.

A question for you gurus, if say my system is running, and I have a power outage, one the power is back on, will it be able to reboot and still auto-login and run the cron job(s) without any human intervention?

Thanks.

As long as you have auto-login enabled, I'd think that the automatic rebooting after a power failure would restart everything normally, unless there's some file-system corruption or something.

Running a program at startup in KDE or Gnome is pretty easy. They both have "startup" folders that work pretty much like the Windows version. Place a shortcut to the program in it and it will run when the manager starts up.

Regarding Firefox, have you seen the kiosk mode faq page yet? http://tln.lib.mi.us/~amutch/pro/phoenix/kiosk.htm

And finally, I'd think you can use a cron job for shutting down. But perhaps you might be interested in KShutDown for a simple graphical setup.

Thanks a lot for all your tips David, especially the one on the shutdown issue.

Regarding the Firefox kiosk mode, well I used an extension that hides all tabs and once I open fullscreen it works perfectly, but I'll sure read more about it on that link.

About the startup, I think I might need a cron job there, because I would like to first test the connection and then start firefox on a specific site. Under windows, I'm using a windows script to ping the address and if the response is true open firefox, else ping again on an infinite loop.

Thanks a lot for your help.