[ale] New Twiki topic LinuxInGASchools

[Charles Marcus]

Comments in-line...

<snip>

> Yeah!  LTSP, if nothing else, can be used as a study case for a more
> elegant solution or it can be implemented as-is with modifications; I
> took a shot at getting LTSP to work (diskless P/90 client) and found
> that any KDE user can shut down the server (a non-starter, for sure!).

This is trivial to fix, and not even worth mentioning...

> <snip>

> Quite true.  It seems as though there are Macs and Wintel entrenched,

Interestingly, it is now possible to get many of the older Powermacs to boot
into LTSP...

www.ltsp.org/contrib/index.php, and scroll down.

> and the level of machinery on hand runs the gamut.  The sticking point
> is going to be creating useful server hardware, but it's pretty clear
> that the range of PCs that people are casting off for being
> too slow for
> use with Win2K and WinXP are the ones that begin to make good servers.

Maybe entry level servers, but if you want a server that can handle 30, 40,
50 or more clients, it will have to be much more powerful - as always,
depending on what the clients will be running.

It is much easier to sell a school or company on investing in *one or two*
high powered LTSP servers, than in dozens or hundreds of new workstations.

> R.D. Head Elementary in Gwinnett County is positively
> crawling with IBM
> PS/2 300GLs.  They are PII machines, ~350-400MHz, with built-in video
> and Ethernet.  I've worked with these machines before and I know that
> they are positively horrible in Windows; one of my guys had one and it
> would hang up every time he tried to copy a large file over
> the network,
> and the video at high resolutions was oddly flickery.  I tried both
> Win98SE and WinNT on another one and got similar results.  BUT, it ran
> Linux very nicely - the video was just fine and the Ethernet was
> flawless.  They have 300GLs at the Sandy Springs branch of the Fulton
> County Public Library and they are murderously slow and crash-happy
> under Windows and running IE.  However, for LTSP client, I
> estimate that
> they're WAY overkill, but if they're all in place, then so be it - you
> get your benefits elsewhere.

They are overkill for clients, and would handle 20-40 clients reasonably
well, as long as you weren't running KDE, and the server was maxed out with
RAM.

If you want to be able to use these low powered servers, then we will have
to become proficient with how to configure the Clients that are capable to
run local apps, to relieve the load from the server.  The low-powered
clients can run their apps on the server.

> It's the server side - whether for LTSP or just file serving - where
> things get tricky.

RAM and HD speed are the two most critical things on an LTSP server.
15000rpm SCSI drives and maxed memory are always preferred, but not always
sellable to the Customer.

> Any and all infrastructure hardware MUST MUST MUST go on a
> UPS.  THAT's
> where the money that would go for MS licenses should go.

Goes without saying for *any* server installation.

<snip>

> I feel that WinXX on the client side is inevitable.

I totally disagree.  Although you are correct that there are many apps that
are available for WinXX that are not for Linux, this does *not* mean that we
can't use Linux for the Clients.

The best solution for this particular issue is the use of a
Linux/Win4Lin/Tarantella server, which can then serve up Win9x sessions to
the LTSP clients - even over a WAN.  It works *really* well - the Win4Lin
guys will even let you connect to a Demo server to see it in action for
yourself.  All you need is a browser that supports Java.

Two things...

1) For low-powered servers, be sure to *not* use a full Desktop
environment - use something like icewm, which is extremely fast and stable
and uses very little memory/resources.  KDE is nice, but a memory/resource
hog, and will kill a low-powered server in a large environment, and

2) Rather than use the vanilla LTSP stuff, use the stuff from the guys who
are pioneering the use of LTSP in schools already (why reinvent the
wheel?)...

www.k12ltsp.org

Charles


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