[Discuss] Linux distro for cash register

[stephen hawkes]

Steven Kurylo wrote:
> On 1/23/07, Julian Phillips <julian at highspeedplus.com> wrote:
>> Hi
>> I am seeking advice on what flavour of Linux I should use to install 
>> on our
>> cash registers.
>>
>> Currently we are using win 2000 with a thinclient (accucobol gt) 
>> installed
>> on our sco box 5.07. My needs are for a barebones instalation with the
>> runtime version of the thinclient. The goal of this project is to 
>> create a
>> reliable and stable pc suited to the purpose of being nothing more 
>> than a
>> cash register. The other important critera is the speed of 
>> reinstalling  in
>> the event of hardware failure.
>
> Sounds like a thin client system like LTSP or ThinStation would work
> great for you.  They'd be just enough to get acucobol up and running.
>
> Otherwise you which ever flavour you're most familiar with.  If I
> didn't use one of the above I'd probably pick debian stable.
>
>
And to make sure you only have to install it once copy a drive image to 
a spare drive (4GB drives are nearly free now and should be large 
enough). Then if a HD fails you can just dupe the image to another 
drive, or if you need another system setup you just need to copy that 
image. Linux deals quite well with hardware changes (unlike windows). 
I've taken a drive with a linux install and placed it in a computer with 
different board chipset and a different vid card and it worked fine. 
Windows blows up on major hardware changes.