It now lets users calibrate multiple touchscreen devices

Sep 7, 2017 20:55 GMT  ·  By

Tomasz Jokiel from Porteus Solutions announced the release of the Gentoo-based Porteus Kiosk 4.5 operating system designed for web terminals, which brings numerous improvements, updated components, and new functionality.

First and foremost, Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 bumps the Linux kernel version from the long-term supported Linux 4.9 series, which was used in the previous release, to the Linux 4.12 branch, shipping with Linux kernel 4.12.10 by default, thus adding an extra layer of hardware support to the free and open-source kiosk operating system for public access computers.

As expected from a kiosk software, Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 also updates the main web browsing components, shipping with Mozilla Firefox 52.3.0 ESR and Google Chrome 60.0.3112.113. On top of that, the new release adds support for the EAPoL (EAP over LAN) authentication on wired connections, as well as support for email notifications to the Porteus Kiosk Server component.

VNC and SSH improvements, other enhancements

Among other noteworthy features that landed in this release, we can mention the ability to calibrate multiple connected touchscreen devices simultaneously, and support for the tunneling service to start as a daemon instead of a script. For security reasons, Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 adds the ability to limit both the VNC and SSH daemons to listen on the localhost interface only.

"VNC and SSH daemons can be limited to listening on localhost interface. This is useful from a security point of view as nobody can access the kiosk on a public network interface," reads the release announcement. "Mind that you'll have to use another service: Porteus Kiosk Server, Guacamole, NoVNC, etc in order to tunnel VNC or SSH traffic to kiosk's localhost interface."

Other than that, it looks like Porteus Kiosk will no longer expose shutdown options for ThinClient and Cloud systems by default, forcing admins to explicitly enable the Shutdown menu in the kiosk configuration, and the WPA supplicant was updated to run on all available wireless network interfaces. Lastly, admins can now sort client list by categories in the view settings.

You can check out the screenshot gallery below if you want to see the new features implemented in the Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 release on the wizard level at a glance. In the meantime, you can download the Porteus Kiosk 4.5.0 ISO image right now from our website if you want to deploy it on your infrastructure. Upgrading from Porteus Kiosk 4.4.0 is also possible using the built-in package management tools.

Calibration
Calibration
EAPoL support
EAPoL support
Shutdown menu
Shutdown menu

Porteus Kiosk 4.5 (6 Images)

Porteus Kiosk 4.5 released
CalibrationEAPoL support
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