this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026
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Theoretically you could create an appliance with just a Linux kernel, Cage and Firefox (plus dependencies) and boot that with
init=cage firefox. This is how most information and advertisement displays and other kiosk systems (think of stuff like the McDonalds order machines) are made.It would be difficult to argue that this isn't an operating system though, because typical definitions are very broad. In particular, you will always need "a program that manages a computer’s resources", and you also need "the allocation of those resources among other programs" because websites are programs (in reality a browsers will liberally fork itself to take advantage of kernel process isolation, but even if it didn't the in-process threads would still qualify).
Vendors of kiosk systems probably have better chances arguing that their devices aren't general purpose than that they don't use an operating system. However if your "kiosk" system is advertising on the basis that you can do general purpose computing within a browser then your chances of arguing that you're somehow not selling a "general purpose computing device" aren't going to be very good.
Thank you for a very insightful comment, touching on both technical and semantic aspects. For the uninitiated, perhaps the technical aspects of a computer are not as important as the user experience. Of course, legislators are getting more and more technically knowledgeable so trying to rebel against OS age verification by simply cosmetically making a computer different from your typical desktop like systems might not suffice...
Nevertheless, I did not know about Cage! At least now I know how the hacks make those IoT control panels with their SBCs! Perhaps I'll set up something cool in my living room like... A weather forecast screen? The stock market? Live GPU prices? :D
I'm admittedly not especially familiar with how law is practiced in the US but in my opinion trying to skirt the letter of the law while blatantly violating its intention is usually a bad idea. The more you piss off prosecutors and judges the more effort they will put into finding something to prosecute you over, and it also makes them more likely to push for the harshest fines/convictions that are legally possible.
Of course a lot of the time the law is just bullshit, and this particular bill appears to have at least a few issues, but still...
For completeness sake, Cage isn't the only way to do this. Gamescope is another popular "kiosk compositor", notably used by the Steam Deck (in the "Deck mode"). And of course the same thing is possible with X window managers as well, Openbox seems to be a popular choice for X11 kiosks.
You can run a GUI app directly on the X server without a separate WM by the way.