On Mon, 18 Nov 2002 22:07:54 +0000, John McCreesh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Yes please, as long as you can remember enough about it to answer the
> questions :-)
Well, we were using the LTSP 2.x version, sitting on a P2/300 with 128M of RAM.
Networking was single-card; meaning that the thin clients used the same lines as all
the other computers on the network. This was a slight problem.
Sure, we had CAT5 wires throughout- the entire place was rewired a few years
previous, and they actually used CAT5 for phone lines. No, no fancy (proper)
terminations, just punch-down strips, which limited the 10BaseT throughput something
awful.
Network bandwidth is key; just turn on a screen saver and see how much a single
client running a screensaver chews up. We removed the screensavers.
We had 12 clients on at a time, until political BS required that I downgrade to
Win98SE. But there's one woman running Linux (standalone) in the accounting
department that, to this day, will hold a gun on you if you try to change her
computing arrangements. She absolutely loves it, and it's not even the slick, easy
Redhat 8.0.
Things change when you go LTSP.
- Upgrading the browsers on the entire clan takes about 30 seconds and does not
require that you leave your seat.
- People LIKE being able to move to another computer and not only login with the
exact same password as before, and have the exact same environment, too. They like
taking their screen-settings and data with'em.
- The main LTSP server becomes a **SERVER**. During the day, you can't touch it.
All your clients will die. Normally, this isn't a problem, but I was trying something
ad-hoc, and I regretted it, waiting all day to put on the UPS, and things like that.
- Thin clients need never be obsolete, as far as I can tell. Even though it's a
fast 486 with 16M of ram, 32m or an Athlon doesn't really change anything.
- Video is also key: Even though the general computing environment is
non-specific, (486/DX, Pentium, etc) people don't want ugly screens. Make sure every
installation is "nice" not "adequate". Keep in mind, users starting with this are
already ticked at having to learn something new...they don't want to feel like they're
downgrading for the sake of money. And besides- decent video cards are really cheap
now.
I'd suggest something with PCI slots, seperate network cards and video cards, and
nothing labelled Compaq. Sure, you can boot'em from floppies, but over time they
collect dirt and the users will (for reasons never quite clear) remove the disks and
lose them. Get decent, self-booting NICs and you'll never have to say you're sorry.
While it's tempting to get $50 machines with $12 monitors, buy something
new-or-close-to-it. I wasted much time fiddling with videos that couldn't do 1024x768,
which is *necessary* under Linux.
LTSP is surely even better now than before, with the 3.x release. I hope to learn
exactly how much better soon. But never, ever, ever start something like this without
the political mood waivering; make sure you chang'em ALL out, and you do a complete
job, without homebrew networking solutions or crappy hardware. Because once you
convert an office to LTSP, they'll never need nor want to go back.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Brian Fahrländer GNU/Linux Zealot, Conservative, and Technomad
Evansville, IN My Voyage: http://www.CounterMoon.com
ICQ 5119262
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