14 DAY TRIAL // Porteus Kiosk Edition, a portable Linux operating system that can be installed on a USB device, CD ROM, SD card or hard drive, and based on the Linux Live Scripts, has just reached version 3.1.
Porteus 3.1 (Kiosk Edition) is based on Slackware 14.0 and relies on Linux kernel 3.12.20 and Firefox 24.0. It's a 32-bit system, which is entirely locked down to prevent tampering with any of the components (including the browser).
“This distribution release includes bug fixes, software updates and new features. At a mere 50 megabytes, the Porteus Kiosk Edition ISO includes just the libraries and utilities required to run Firefox in a secure environment, making this a perfect fit for kiosks and other web terminals.”
“From now on the ISO also includes kiosk wizard, which automates the customization process while keeping the Kiosk edition locked down and secure,” said the developers on the forums.
According to the changelog, the Linux kernel has been updated to version 3.12.20 (an LTS release), xorg-server has been updated to version 1.15.0, busybox has been updated to version 1.22.1, Mozilla Firefox is now at version 24.5.0, Adobe Flash is now at version 11.2.202.359, the “Kiosk Wizard” has been added into gtkdialog and it has been included directly in the kiosk ISO, the Gtkdialog now offers unique features, the “Automatic Updates” commercial service has been added, printing support for local and remote printers has been implemented, and the possibility of controlling numlock behavior during boot has been added.
Also, the possibility of removing address bar from the Firefox's UI layout has been implemented, the option of enabling the incoming ICMP protocol has been implemented, a customizable Firefox user agent, which may be helpful in forcing layouts on some websites that are set to support certain browsers has been added, the possibility of editing the config file generated by the wizard manually has been added, and now it's possible to burn the base kiosk ISO on a CD, but install it on a hard drive.
The Kiosk edition is a different type of Linux distribution and it's not really aimed at regular users. It's built for devices that are usually employed by multiple users and it's made in such a way that it's virtually impossible to break it. You can get it nonetheless and test it just like a regular OS.
A complete list of changes can be found in the official announcement. You can download Porteus 3.1 (Kiosk Edition) right now from Softpedia.