Title. Mainly asking for the library side, but PC cafe is also interesting to ask about.
Mainly since Windows 11 is 64-bit only, and it seems Windows 12 is going to subscription based on top of that, neither of which public libraries can afford tossing out computers and paying more in subscription fees than they make with overdue books.
My local library is only open for 2 days a week, due to a lack of funds for hiring more staff in the area. They use older Dell all in ones, and that just makes me think if they don’t have the money for being open 5 days a week, they don’t have the money to buy 4 new computers for the space.
Not even getting into the bigger libraries part of that system or the ones nearby. Some have 8 computers in groups, with 4 stations of groups.
So I was just wondering, if anyone has started or is aware of a Library/Public Computer focused linux-based OS? Perhaps one that allows immutable systems, and the library card system backed most use to enable end user access. Perhaps that’s a config file tucked away somewhere.
And I guess the PC cafe OS is interesting, simply due to the fact that Linux gaming has been making huge strides, and PC cafes are still popular in Japan, Korea, and China.
EDIT: I am not in control or assistance to the library, just looking if there’s a potential solution to libraries like mine. If I could give links to a library computer manager, or if I could give upstream bug reports to people making such software.
NixOS is immutable and highly reproducible, with the ability to rebuild identical systems with a declarative configuration file–including installed packages.
So in the case of multiple public computers, you would only need to create/maintain one configuration file that defines all of the user profiles, permissions, restrictions, settings, software packages, you name it.
It would without a doubt be what i’d choose for a fleet of public library computers. Extremely reliable and easy to setup to prevent tampering or misuse.
As a librarian this is an awesome idea but unlikely to work out long term for a couple of reasons relating to the libraries.
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Patrons will absolutely freak out if the computer they sit down at doesn’t look like the Windows machine they are expecting. Even the time-keeping software we use makes people uncomfortable and it’s just a countdown clock for the 30 minutes they signed up for. I’ve had a very expensive Mac desktop for art and music software go totally unused for years because most patrons want a Windows computer to check their Hotmail. Librarian sobs
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Unless the library 'technologist" or IT team is already really into Linux in their off time AND paid well enough to bring that experience with them to the office, the people tasked with keeping it running will fail within 6 months and revert it back to something they can fix fast. Generally there’s one IT department that’s handing the libraries and other government run service offices and they will not take the time to do anything out of the ordinary.
Maybe for a subset of computers in a large library like the stand-up quick access stations or catalog lookup computers near the books. Linux can and does a lot of good keeping these one-use stations going despite the fact the run on 1998 Dell Potatoes.
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Honestly I’d
- take any distribution that someone at or close to the library is comfortable with, e.g popular Ubuntu or Debian,
- setup a user profile that fits the need of the average library user, e.g Firefox with as a start page the library website
- make sure the library card system do work
- copy /home/thatuser directory somewhere, e.g /root/thatuserunmodified and insure permissions make it unmodifiable
- add a cron task so that every evening 1h after the library close any thatuser session is terminated, /home/thatuser gets deleted, copy the /root/thatuserunmodified to /home/thatuser and fixer permission
- assuming it’s fast enough (I bet it’s take 1min at most as /home/thatuser would be mostly empty) I’d do the process after each logout so that each new visitor gets a fresh session, no downloads from previous users, history, bookmarks, etc. Only what the library consider useful.
That’s it. This way one can still let the OS do it’s updates but the user experience is consistent.
I am no expert. But I think there is an ‘easier’ way too manage this with an overlay filesystem.
Have an immutable base with all permissions set. When a session is started have it be done in an in-memory overlay. On logout drop the overlay.
This might be easier if you don’t want to rely on cronjobs. But as I have no experience myself setting this up… ‘easier’ should be taken with a grain of salt. I just took inspiration from docker.
