Is there a Linux based OS for public computers, such as at a library or a PC cafe?

Work with informationsecurity and GDPR. And know as a fact that many danish municipalities which administrate the libraries are using, and are happy with, Linux as public facing citizen PC's in libraries.

They use OS2borgerPC, which translates to OS2citizenPC which is maintained and supported by the danish company Magenta. But it's open source, so if you are in another country you could just use it - or better, give Magenta a call. They're great and very reseaonable.

Magenta: https://www.magenta.dk/en/ OS2borgerPC on github: https://github.com/OS2borgerPC

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.

You may want something like https://porteus-kiosk.org/

As a librarian this is an awesome idea but unlikely to work out long term for a couple of reasons relating to the libraries.

1. 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

2. 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.

Depends on what you want. Search for "Gnome Cafe" for example.

There is an article about Fedora Silverblue as a Kiosk. Silverblue should be configured with weekly automatic updates, every half a year, waiting 3 weeks or so, it has to be updated (this could be automated too).

The only thing is the actualy library software. It can run on a server that is accessed through a website in Firefox fullscreen for example. Gnome has a a special kiosk compositor for that.

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.

If Windows 12 becomes subscription-based, Google and Apple will be laughing all the way to the bank.

Windows 12 is not going to a subscription model, stop repeating this obvious bullshit. The original article was debunked yet dumbasses keep spouting it.

Honestly I think a bunch of simple scripts would be more than enough.

For guest account all you need is to clear their directory in /home/ every logout/login. If you don't give them root permission, they cannot mess with the system.

I know the Danish OS2 foundation maintains a distro explicitly for Public computers in libraries.

I don't know if something like this exists, but I think the right solution for you would be something that my school did with our computers. They had installed Mint on it, but it was configured in a way, that when you rebooted the whole user profile would be resetted.

I get what you say that they can't afford to be tossing out old equipment ... But there hasn't been a x86 based 32bit PC made in over 20 years. Are you really trying to find an OS for systems that old or is this just a thought experiment?

I'm generally not a fan of endless os (very locked down), but this might be a good low-maintenance option for libraries.

Endless comes out of the box with offline educational materials and learning apps.

Flatpak based distribution.

ChromeOS Flex is an interesting choice for kiosks. There's a great case study from Nordic Choice Hotels: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/chrome-enterprise/nordic-choice-hotels-bounces-back-ransomware-attack-chromeos-flex.

My local bike coop used to run mint. Something similar-ish to Windows should be fine, as would something very user friendly like pop or ubuntu. The biggest thing is going to be teaching all your librarians how to do basic tasks in it so they can answer questions like “why can’t I open word”, “where’s the internet”, “how do I print”, and “why did you change your computers to something nobody knows how to use”

Anything would work; people don’t

There are people that think Linux is all terminal based and refuse to use it because of that

I'm not going to lie but I've been playing around with a VDI setup for internet cafes. Let's you use servers that places are liquidating in the back, but cheaper thinclient/zero client at the actual desks. Also helps reduce user damage and theft where that is a concern (can't tell you how many IT tickets I've worked because of people kicking cables).

I'm not sure of exactly how they manage everything, but my county library system uses Debian with an XFCE interface.

Not sure if it's because it's been this way long enough now, or it just looks close enough to Windows, but I haven't known anyone to complain (and my in-laws complain about everything else)

Are you in control of the library, or is this just as a recommendation?

I've used Webconverger previously to setup public facing kiosks with a browser hardcoded to a book-search address as the home page. Quite robust and most users could not break or break out of the browser environment.

Webconverger seems to be EOL this year though. RIP and thanks.

Search for 'linux kiosk' to find other options. (Seems like Porteus is the go-to these days)

To summarise: use a terminal server system if you can, using a desktop for the end user that can be made to behave like windows (or another concept that works for your demography), and have the whole setup in a NixOS configuration that you manage in git.

I see that https://github.com/ltsp/ltsp is still going strong.

I don't know if there's a distro made specifically with libraries in mind, but I would lean toward the Cinnamon DE because it's the easiest to fool people into thinking it's Windows out of the box.

The main issue would be folks coming in to use MS Office. LibreOffice compatibility with MS office's formats isn't perfect and sometimes it'll mangle formatting.

I believe you want to look into libki. Works on Windows and Linux.

Linux Mint with this serves our local library.

The public library in my city uses OpenSuse

You people jump on wild rumors like crazy. Windows isn't going to be subscription based on 12.

I always thought Deepin Desktop looked close enough like Windows 10 or 11 that some people might not notice, may be worth trying.

Generally instead of starting off with all your eggs in one basket, it might be worth running say a different distro every week and recording the experiences patrons have and what the people who are doing IT support have. This kind of approach is scientific in nature and gives you relevant data (though only a small amount) for your current environment. It's also small scale and doesn't require huge start up cost to begin.

Wish you the best!

Puppy Linux and easyos have those options... It's been a bit since I've used them tho..

They could do a thin client type of deal and just virtual desktops that get deleted at the end of the session. If they are on 32bit hardware that really limits options on operating systems but a single backend computer hosting virtual desktops can be a donated 64bit PC/Server.

Does it need more then a webbrowser and a rfid card reader? I dont know how those library backend systen work but most systems save data in a plain ol database.

I don’t see a reason why they cant already use a limux based OS except that someone will need an employee or volunteer to set it all up and support.

For those saying NixOS has no commercial support, there is: https://nixos.org/community/commercial-support

Some Danish public libraries are using OS2borgerPC (citizenPC), which is a Linux system with remote management, with the source code here https://github.com/OS2borgerPC. It is developed by a collaboration of municipalities.

The main website https://www.os2.eu/os2borgerpc is in Danish, but the main points are that the computers reset automatically on logout, automatically logs out after inactivity and the (self hosted) remote management platform which can alert in case of hardware or software keyloggers and handle automatic updates. There is also a price chart, but that seems to only be for Danish municipalities to join the collaboration.

I don't imagine there'd be a specific distro but you could absolutely lock a Linux machine down to be usable as a kiosk

Real question would be why though, a computer is a computer to the majority of people and you can always just bring your own laptop if you want Linux for yourself

Libraries are not companies, they don’t need to make a profit. They are supported by taxes. The computers they have are old because they work perfectly fine.

They probably don’t pay for licensing, and the cost to maintain non-windows OS would be more due to having to hire people with that skill set.