Debian

Here is my question, a few years back I was sitting in an airplane and saw the movie display for all the passengers in the back of all the seats boot up. You could see the all too familiar boot-up-scrolling text that we are all used to with Linux. But probably only a few other folks on the plane could have recognized the Linux aspect of the entertainment system because it booted directly to the airlines proprietary movie software package.

I know lots of folks use Linux for all sorts of stuff out in the real world and I have been using Linux for quite some time now. However, I recently came across some work that requires me to boot Linux but not go to a GUI. Instead, I want to go to some other software that I am and will be coding.

So, in other words, I want to boot Debian but then without a keyboard for the user always start up special software. To the user, they may see the Linux-scrolling boot up screen but it really just needs to be a black box for them. And the application won't have a keyboard. So, in a sense, it is a little similar to the on-flight movie example I gave at the beginning.

So there must be someway I can have access to the GUI when need be but the common user just boots up to the specialized software.

This is a bit of a new frontier for me in Linux so any direction or advice is greatly appreciated.

Keep on keeping on my friends.

Caleb.

One way might be to define a separate runlevel for the specialized software. Or set up the OS to run in kiosk mode.

I would be interesting in doing this too, this could open up a lot of project opportunities. Let us know if you figure it out.