tklpatch - TKL LXDE Client Workstation - based off of Turnkey Core

I recently came across the work and discussions about creating a "TKL Client Workstation" appliance. It has been discussed in many previous posts from some of the most active community members and the developers:

This version of a patch is derived from the posts above. Included apt packages:

tklpatch

xorg

lxde

gksu

policykit-1

xscreensaver

synaptic

gnome-system-tools

galculator

epdfview

clamtk

midori

Default User = admin

Default Pass = turnkey

I setup this patch with some preconfigured apps but I also set it up to allow the user to choose to install additional apps from the menu. So, if you prefer Chromium (Open Source Chrome) instead of Ice Weasel (Debian's Firefox), you can choose to install either one. It seemed to be a more modular and customizable approach for a basic workstation?

I've created an application group off of the main taskbar menu that has shortcuts for installing applications (some with TKL specific configs). It also has shortcuts for local web configuration pages (like webmin). I found these personally helpful for getting started quickly. The group is called 'TKL_Workstation' on the taskbar menu.

All of the application install scripts are actually bundled as tkl patch directories and could easilly be re-organized or re-combined to produce individual TKL appliance patches, FYI.

One of the install options will install the "Virtual Box" Virtual machine manager onto the desktop. This is great because once Virtual Box is installed, you can download and run all the TKL appliances on your TKL workstation! See this post: /docs/installation-appliances-virtualbox for more info.

I included some TKL specific desktop wallpaper and startmenu icons that were created by Jomy Muttathil in this post: /forum/general/20101008/tklclient-core-appear... . When you right click the Desktop and browse, the files are in the default folder.

I didn't remove any of the components of the TKLCore appliance, including those that could be considered to be more "Server" related packages. I liked the idea of keeping the "Core Client" as close to the TKLCore appliance as possible.

For system startup, I also kept things similar to the TKLCore appliance, so the confconsole screen still comes up at boot; as opposed to using a graphical display manager login screen like the Gnome Display Manager (http://projects.gnome.org/gdm/). This may be slightly less flashy to begin with, but the admin account is set to auto-launch the 'startx' command on login. So, when you quit out of confconsole and then login as admin, you will directly launch into the LXDE desktop GUI.

And finally, please reference the included ReadMe.html file for more detail of this patch's implementation. It's on the Desktop of the "admin" user or in the TKL_Workstation>TKL_Reference menu. There are a few other included tweaks to LXDE listed there that I found helpful.

-Brian

Replies (3)

Nice work Brian!

Reply 1 2013-04-25

I like the sound of your take on it, and good work on following through. As you noted there has been a fair bit of discussion about this in the past, but it never got very far.

When I have a bit more time (possibly next year the way things are going... :p) I'll have a look and a play...

Haven't deployed or tested on Proxmox

Reply 2 2013-06-09

When putting this workstation appliance together, I did the development inside of a VirtualBox virtual machine. I also tested on bare metal installs. I haven't had any difficulties with either of those platforms. As this is a somewhat different direction for the TKL appliances (a workstation vs. a server), I had pictured the installs pretty much all being done on bare metal

Unfortunately, I don't currently have a Proxmox system setup to test the install on and I'm not familiar with how to create an OpenVZ container.

The *.tar.gz patch should work as well, If you started from a generic TKLClient core appliance and used the tklpatch utility to apply it.

Please let me know if you are able to get the bootable *.iso working in your environment, or if you able to get it work through another means. I'm not sure why it would be any different, so I'll give that more thought.

Thanks for taking a look at the appliance! If you are able to perform a bare metal install at some point, I'd love your feedback on that also.

-Brian

Thanks!

Reply 3 2013-04-27

Yes, please take a look and give feedback.

It was a proof-of-concept. But, I think that it is a solid workstation+web browser+VirtualBox combination.

I setup some of the installs to have TKL specific pieces, like tklbam folder exclusions and post-restore hooks for the custom repos. Seems to be working OK.

I uploaded the bootable *.iso to my google drive. There's supposed to be a way that wget can work with google drive, but I haven't got that working yet. You should be able to download via that link through a browser though.

I hear you about time. Never enough. :)

-Brian