Tom,
I disagree that LTSP has a hardware cost disadvantage.
Cheapest Dell PC (no monitor) is about $300 but that is only available
with XP Home. Cheapest Dell PC with XP Professional I could find was $470.
In any application where you are thinking about deploying a number of
Windows PCs, you will be using XP Pro.
New thin clients are $210 each and a Dell server that will support 30
clients is about $4,000.00. That is a total of about $350 per seat.
Even running a peer-to-peer Windows network (no server) LTSP is $120
cheaper per seat.
And that doesn't account for:
a) In a more realistic comparison you would have to add in for a
Windows domain server - at least $100 per seat.
b) Setting up 30 individual PCs (Linux or Windows) is more costly in
labor then setting up 30 thin clients. (1/2 hour vs. 2 hours each)
c) The Dell PC is shipped bare - no Office Suite, Anti Virus, etc.
while the LTSP set up has everything you need. M$ software costs
would *easily* add several hundred dollars to the cost of each
desktop.
So without going to the whole TCO thing, LTSP is less expensive. TCO
just is icing on the cake.
Pete Billson
--
http://www.elbnet.com
ELB Internet Service, Inc.
Web Design, Computer Consulting, Internet Hosting
Tom Griffing wrote:
Marvin;
This is sort of where I'm going with this, but with a twist. You have
configured it to combine multiple displays into a single X session. I
want to run a separate X server for each display and attach additional
keyboards/mice so each monitor/keyboard/mouse can provide separate
sessions for multiple users.
By default, the Linux kernel combines all PS/2 and USB keyboard input
into a single stream for the console. The "Ruby" kernel extention keeps
the signals separate and allows each to be mapped to a unique X server.
It is detailed here:
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/XFree-Local-multi-user-HOWTO/about_bruby.html
The combination of LTSP + Ruby would enable a single client to
support as many as 16 users and dramatically lower the per-seat user
cost. Cost has been a nusiance, since the cost of new equipment for
an LTSP terminal is greater than an entry-level Dell PC (one client
pointed this out). I talk about "Low TCO", but lower hardware cost
is a strong argument. I'd like to have that argument on my side ;-)
Tom
Hello Tom,
I have a LTSP 4.1.1 setup but I don't know if it has a "Ruby Kernel" as
what you are looking for but all my thin clients are running with a dual
head/monitor, one is a 15' and the other one is a 17' monitor. The 17'
monitor was configured to have a rotated clockwise screen orientation so
that it will give me a longer vertical screen and which will fit an A4
paper on the screen without scrolling it up and down. I'm just using an
S3 Savage4 PCI video card for the 15' monitor and NVidia GeForce2 AGP
video card for the 17' monitor.
Marvin
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