The highest Internet Access Center in Europe uses KDE !

by Gérard Delafond

An intrepid KDE fellow did not hesitate to venture in the bare landscape of ice, snow and rocks of the French Alps to report on the highest Public Internet Access Center (called in French as cyberbases) located in the Tourist House of Val Thorens, a ski resort spreading between 2300 and 3200 meters.

In these extreme conditions, our reporter found in the hall of the Tourist House, five cybertables full of computers in front of which tourists of all nationalities were sitting surfing the web with intensity after having surfed down the snowy slopes.

Our reporter bought a ticket (9 euros per hour) from the resort hostesses and typed in a computer the identification number printed on the ticket and chose his favorite language. He was happily surprised to discover a beautiful KDE 3.1 splashscreen when his session started. The interface was carefully locked but for the finest man in Fleet Street, it is a piece of cake to sneak in private places. He found that the computer was running KDE 3.1.4 under Debian with the Keramik theme and the addition of several non-KDE opensource programs (OpenOffice.org 1.1 and Mozilla). The computer was also fully equipped for chatting even with the MSN or AOL protocols. Our reporter was amazed to discover that the users of the cyberbase, most of them without any knowledge of the OS they were running, were using KDE with proficiency. The main problem for foreigners seemed to be the peculiarities of the French keyboard but there were some Qwerty keyboards available. A tourist could also come with his private computer to the cyberbase and plug it in an Ethernet cable and then point his navigator to laptop.cybertable.com to enter his login identifier. He could also use a WiFi connection with the drawback that his ticket was not breakable in several units. If he had used the cyberbase computers or the Ethernet connection, he could have divided his ticket in the number of desired sessions. This extreme experiment reveals that KGX (Gnu-Linux-KDE) is ready to be used without assistance and training by the general public if workstations are correctly configured.

Back from the treacherous mountains full of avalanches and amok skiers, our KDE fellow promised himself to volunteer to travel to more exotic places where KDE is used in extreme conditions. Maybe the Maldives, Tahiti or Florida.

To learn more about Neptune Systèmes, the ISV selling KDE-based Public Internet Access Centres you can read an interview in French or in an English translation.

Can you talk to us about your company. When did you start, and what were your first activities with Linux?

Since 1995, with an Internet center, using Linux + Apache web server.

Why did you choose KDE for your desktop environment?

Configuring is easy and complete, which allows us to customize the environment according to our needs. The look and feel of KDE is good, which is very important for us, since the public is not always very skilled with computers. In addition, KDE gives the ability to easily accees to the floppy drive, which does not exist in GNOME environment.

How many computers have you already equipped ?

Today, 150 computers are available for public Internet access. We have about 200.000 connections (sometimes from the same user) each year between our terminals and our Internet center.

Which KDE apps do you use ? What are your favorite applications?

For our public Internet access products, our software needs are low. The main program is the Internet browser. Sadly, we do no use Konqueror as a main browser, but Mozilla, which supports more web sites. KDE apps we use are : KDE desktop, konqueror, multimedia players (noatun and kaffeine), the file manager, the image viewer (kview), messengers (ksim).

About Val Thorens, how did you get such a fast connection so high ? Satellite ?

In fact, our installation in Val Thorens, uses a ISDN connection, which is dispatched between 5 computers. We are planning a France Telecom or Eutelsat satellite connection, which are poorly reliable, for the next season. Most of our Internet access points use RTC or RNIS modem, sometimes ADSL when available.

What bitrate do you have? (seems a bit quicker than a single modem)

We use very good modems, which performances are amazing. We noticed that most of clients use webmails, the mandatory bitrate is lower than for web searching.

How did you modify KDE ? Did you use Kiosk to limit functions?

At the beginning, we modified KDE source code to deactivate some functions. This method was very heavy and took much time for compiling... Browsing KDE community websites, we found an article about KIOSK. We immediately adopted it. We use it to deactivate apps setting menus, limit access to files and forbid shell access.

Can you talk to us about your cyberbase managing software (Eclipse). Do you have other specifical admin tools?

Eclipse software is an intranet site, which lets administrate an Internet center. From this interface, the admin can create accounts for customers, make some time-tickets for the clients, mamagehis cash. The billing on the clients is automatic.

Some other admin interfaces exist, we chose php because, the development and settings are simple.

How reliable is the system ? How can you intervene if there is a problem if your Internet Centres are located so far from your office ?

Nearly 100%, we still have some bugs, but nothing severe. Our product is strong ! Most problems come from telephone lines, which are often bad in the mountains, or from poorly programmed Internet sites, which only work with IE !

We have a hotline service every day, Sunday included,until 9 PM. If we need to work on a computer, we make a Point to Point connection between modems, and then, we establish a ssh connection on the remote computer. That way, we can make all interventions about system admin or configuring... In case of hardware problem, we use the warranty on the DELL site. In case of Hard Disk problem (very few, because we use ext3), we leave an installation CDROM to the people who take care of the center. Our installation procedure is nearly automatic. For configuring, each computer has a personal floppy disk. We go to the center only if we cannot understand the problem remotely.

Do you think there is a higher cyberbase in Europe (Val Thorens is 2300m high)?

I don't think so. We plan now to propose a Linux solution to the local collectivities who want to create EPMs (Espace Publics Multimedia); a first center in Chirens village.

Why did you choose Debian?

We know it very well. Debian distribution is well suited for installing customized systems. Generating and spreading system packages is very simple on Debian. We use apt-get with our own repositories to keep our computers constantly up-to-date.

Did you manage to obtain DELL computers without MSWindows? How?

Yes, our DELL hardware is sold without an OS...it's has been hard to obtain.

Did you get Internet attacks, and did they fail? Do you use iptables, for Internet sharing and protection? Other?

No, for the moment, no attack have been attempted on our computers, the fact they are not constantly connected to the Internet may save them. Our system is partly closed, even if we must leave an ssh access open, we are aware of some efforts are still to be done concerning security.

We use iptables for Internet sharing and for blocking the way out to laptop computers.

What do you think about the French KDE translations (and other the languages)?

Concerning the applications we use, we have nothing to say, the translation is very well and complete enough for an Internet/desktop use.

Do you think free software translation is vital?

Yes, of course, it is an important condition to get free software open to the public. The first versions of our web center used the English version of Mozilla, which caused much complaints from our French users. Some of them even refused to use our system.

Are you planning to add some other languages to the main European languages already available? Which ones?

Our Internet center in Grenoble hosts many asiatic students. We have integrated japanese and traditional chinese to our product. That for, we use KDE, mozilla and OpenOffice.org translation packages. For japanese writing, we set a "canna" server. Japanese users can write in their language with most of the apps.

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