title: Programming language and O/S for a kiosk based system
body: <p>I am going to be developing some software for a kiosk and was wondering what operating system and programming language I would be best off going with.  </p>
  
  <p>I understand kiosks a bit and realized there are lot of issues as it pertains to software upgrades, etc so I want an environment that can be easily managed remotely but is also secure.  </p>
  
  <p>I've read that <strong>Windows Embedded</strong> is a pretty popular O/S choice for kiosks and I assume that if that's the route I'd take, I'd most likely go with a .Net (C#/VB) solution for the development language.  However, I'd assume this would add quite a bit as far as cost to the kiosk.  </p>
  
  <p>Personally, I'd prefer <strong>Linux</strong> as an O/S but then I'd either have to go with Java (not any experience), or something like TCL/Tk (not much experience and very generic looking UI), or a web front-end.  </p>
  
  <p>I really want to stay away from a <strong>web application</strong> since I feel like developing very appealing web based user interfaces that include a lot of data entry, are quite time consuming to develop and getting the UI to look exactly the way you want involves a lot of different technologies (Javascript, CSS, HTML, etc).  </p>
  
  <p>So, I wanted to get some opinions if people were willing to make some suggestions.</p>