Hi i am in need of a Linux distro that can be installed on a diskless workstation. I want the distro to boot up and open a web browser and just allow users to browse the net and nothing else. The distro would need to have network capabilities to get a dhcp address.

Is there currently a distro that any knows of that could do this? And is what I want to do even possible?
I am very new to Linux. Actually i have never used it before so i am looking for some help with this project.

Thanks
Hayden

Hi khd479,

And welcome to LQ.org. There are several distribution which meet your requests. I personally would recommend you Ubuntu:

http://www.ubuntu.com/

It's very easy to use, has a great community and some very handy tutorials on the net.

It runs off the CD-rom as well, which suits your needs on the "diskless" part. Download a copy from the link I posted and burn to a CD. Boot with that CD on the drive and you can start trying out Ubuntu without modifying anything on you computer, it will run from the CD-rom and it is a great way to test it and see if all your hardware works fine with it.

Regards!

http://kiosk.mozdev.org/ would be a good place to start. From there, they provide a link to http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/src/kiosk which is for diskless clients. I'd advise looking at the rest of their links too. Another option would be to check out the Linux Terminal Server Project - http://www.ltsp.org/

And welcome to LQ

When i say the machine will be a diskless machine it will be a thin client so it will not have a cd drive. The machines will end up being a kiosk that will be set to look at a certain website. It will not be able to connect to another server to pull the os down or to terminal into.

The distro would need to be placed on the actual thin client somehow and the client will need to boot into a web browser and open the webpage.

Then the 3 links I posted should be of great help to you.