On 1/25/06, Gudmund Areskoug <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Krsnendu Dasa wrote: > > The number of client computers connected to our K12LTSP network keeps > > increasing. It is currently 14 clients soon to increase to 20 or more > > with the addition of a new classroom. Most clients are very similar > > Compaq Deskpro DPENS P2 or Celeron 350 or 400MHz. > > Perhaps some things can run locally? If they've got disks, you might > perhaps consider local swapping. >
I do not think for the number of clients this is really the best way. I keep running upto 30+ office guys with OO & Firefox all the time. The two issues that helped a lot: 1. Memory. 2gb now. 2. SCSI disks. I also thought they may not be eworth the money but the first disk in and things became better. In fact I am surprised that SATA can effectively server 15+ clients. > > > Each of the 3 (soon to be 4) classrooms has their own 10/100 switch that > > feeds into a 100/1000bit switch that connects to the server. All are > > unmanaged switches. There are also a few windows computers that connect 10/100 may be the bottle neck here. Recommend 100 mbps ethernet. Hubs can always choke that particular branch of network since they do broadcast based networking apart from the fact that the max throughput would be limited to ~2mbps. > > During a newspaper production project, when we had more than ten clients > > running simultaneously using Scribus and OpenOffice or Firefox, things > > slowed down a bit and we had a few crashes. Increasing RAM from 1 GB to > > 2 GB seemed to help somewhat but not completely. > > Except Scribus and the other software you mention, I guess Gimp might > also be used in the same context. I think more RAM wouldn't hurt if > you'll have more simultaneous users. > Run iptraf or some gkrell like diagonostic utility and really see what are the areas that are getting overloaded. With your setup I suspect disk IO will show up as constrain. Benefit of iptraf is that it monitors many parameters and displays them together. > BTW: how did you fare with Scribus? We happen to have similar plans > here, but noone has gotten around to testing open source layout software > (or making the scanner work via LTSP). > I have tried the latest Samsung MFD SXC4000 and they work for print, scan and copy (till now connected to server). > > Below are some options I have thought of. Which would be the best > > option? Any other suggestions? > > 1.Upgrade from a "desktop" computer to a server specific motherboard/CPU > > including SCSI drives etc. This seems expensive, and I am not sure of > > the real benefit of a "server" over "desktop" at the same CPU speed etc. > > If you get a dual (or more) CPU motherboard, at least that might bring > benefits. They can often accomodate more RAM too. > Cost to benefit ratio favours AMD64 cpu plus MSI motherboards. Though you would loose flash if you load 64 bit OS. I would rather concentrate on one box till I can get to absolute wall than try to work out application server / file server with NFS and file locking issues. HTH -- Sudev Barar Learning Linux ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Splunk Inc. Do you grep through log files for problems? Stop! Download the new AJAX search engine that makes searching your log files as easy as surfing the web. DOWNLOAD SPLUNK! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid3432&bid#0486&dat1642 _____________________________________________________________________ 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
