Hello; I have worked with setting up old PCs and have concluded that old hardware can waste a *lot* of time. If a PC requires more than 30 minutes to prepare as an LTSP client, it isn't worth my time - and I've wasted a lot of time trying to find out that ISA cards are *very* difficult to configure.
Especially when you can purchase good PCs for less than $50.00 from E-Bay (PII, with memory). You can also purchase new thin clients for less than $200 from caseoutlet.com (less memory). http://www.caseoutlet.com/NWPc/2677R/CS-2677R.html In my opinion, I think the best solution is to try to find some companies that will donate old PCs. This will be much easier if you specify that you don't want hard disks in them. Companies are (or should be) paranoid about disposing of hard disks. I was amazed when talking with an Independent School District and overheard a mandate to get rid of the last of their "old P266" machines. The problems you are having are due to "memory squeeze". There's probably enough memory to load the O/S and mount the root filesystem from the server, but not to run X. If you want to demonstrate the need for more memory, you can change /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf and set the runlevel for the "crippled" workstation to "3". This way, the boot process stops before X is started and you can show that trying to run X overloads the machine. During the boot process, a script is created that starts X when executed: "/tmp/start_ws". It is good for troubleshooting when run by hand like so: # /tmp/start_ws > /tmp/x.out 2>&1 Of course, it is mostly useful if you can get back to the command line to examine the file. Trying to run X in only 8 MB may seize the machine totally. Hope this helps, Tom > I am trying to set up network with collection of old machines. Could you > help me for: > > 1. Pentium I's with 8mb mem get hung up at RAM disk step during boot. I > have enabled nfs_swap option but still the machine does not boot beyond > this. I have four machines of this configuration so I need answers > desperately. > > 2. 386's with 8mb mem. I have six machines of this spec and I was > wondering if any of you have made config's for such machines including > running X. I know it will run slow (slower than slow) but till I prove > the concept the management will not sanction upgrades. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Thomas L. Griffing Red Hat Certified Engineer Pondus Solutions, Inc. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email sponsored by: Free pre-built ASP.NET sites including Data Reports, E-commerce, Portals, and Forums are available now. Download today and enter to win an XBOX or Visual Studio .NET. http://aspnet.click-url.com/go/psa00100006ave/direct;at.asp_061203_01/01 _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net
