Most of the stats on server needs for a thin client situation refer to classroom situations etc, ie 20-30 clients. Nevertheless you will want a fair whack of RAM, scsi disks and a fast processor(s) to allow for future clients.
I think with wireless bandwidth will be your enemy on a thin client setup. 10M thin clients work, but 100M is wwaaaayyy better. 802.11b gear maxes at 11M so theres your first problem. Leter 802.11 gear (a&g IIRC) has faster throughput, but less linux support yet. Saw a wireless HP printer advertised the other day. Very cool idea. Your thin clients don't need to be much, but if you want real small and cool and quiet look at some of the epia gear. Small motherboards, fanless & quiet. http://www.mini-itx.com/ Gotchas will be legacy apps that only run on windows. Get your partner to think carefully about what apps he uses in a day, or a month, and check them all off against the linux system. Most can be worked around, but it pays to check. On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 06:37, Jason Greenwood wrote: > Ok guys, here's your chance. You tell me the very best way to do what I > want to do and we'll most likely do it! I am looking for hardware input > mainly as we are employing Paul William to help us deploy the eventual > software and solution. > > Want to run a 2 person office on Linux (with a view to adding 2-4 staff > later). Would like to run attractive, modern thin clients on the > desktop. Thin client ideas? They don't have to be ultra cheap (since we > could buy used lower spec'd desktops to do the job) but we are always > conscious of budget of course. We know what sort of sever specs we're > after but we also want to be as 'wireless' as possible, from Internet > access to printing to anything else we can make wireless! I HATE wiring. > =) It's so old school anyway... any wireless stories/deployments greatly > appreciated here. > > Flat panels of course are almost de'rigeur these days aren't they? Any > pitfalls/recommendations there? thinking 17in cuz it seems there is > little price benefit going smaller than that. LCD would be nice but > ouch, pricey. Are there slimline CRT's I don't know about or ALL those > super slim small form factor monitors LCD's? > > My business partner is sold on the idea of an exclusively Linux/OSS > office but as he comes from a doze background I want to make this as > painless as possible for him. Any gotcha's I should plan for? > > We'll of course be running a Linux firewall and file server and maybe > even an IMAP server for mail anywhere since my hosting company has caps > on IMAP storage AFAIK. > > I look forward to hearing from you all. I want to be a shining example > of what a small Linux based office CAN be. The key here is style I > guess. The gear needs to look nice as there will be business associates > coming to the office and they WILL be basing part of their opinion of us > on the gear we run. > > Cheers all, > > Jason
