Re: [Ltsp-discuss] Thin client still cost effective ?

[Arno Teigseth]

Joseph Toman wrote:

Scott Balneaves wrote:

1) First of all, assuming you're going to provide storage space + some
kind of local devices access, how much space are you going to give them?
The "$400 PC" probably comes with an 80 or 120 gig drive.  How much
space/user are you realistically going to be able to offer them?

This is of course a serious drawback

2) Neither "cheap" Cable or DSL services offer any kind of guarenteed
bandwidth provisions.  Grandma isn't going to be too pleased with the
service when the network slows down to 21.2 Kilobytes/sec because every
15 year old kid on the block's P2P'ing the latest 50 cent album.

Not much an issue here - most have DSLs or fiber. A few run cable and all of them complain, so I'm not so sure about the future for those.

3) Most Cable/DSL services have a monthly Gigabyte transfer limit before
you start getting charged extra.  If every byte of screen info's gonna
rack up your charges, it's not going to take too many sessions of
looking at the gradkids latest 1600x1200 pictures before Grandma's
monthly charges get pretty high.

Also most DSLs and fiber here do not have any traffic limit (at least on the tree largest DSL companies here). But the storage question and:

The other question is: if ownership and control are synonymous, then who

owns your data? What happens when you miss a subscription payment for your computer service? Local client/server systems work because the sys admin is a trusted user, but that's not neccessarily the case with some "WebTV on steroids" product run by Megacorp Inc. . One answer might be encrypted filesystems, but that puts the burden of maintenance back on the user. Or have the data stored locally and the OS and apps are remote, but that really doesn't change anything because you need the apps to use the data, so the service provider still owns the data. I think the bandwidth and diskspace issues are minor problems compared to the trust issue.

Arno

seems to be somewhat difficult to solve problems. Unless all you want is an internet kiosk. But still a bit space is required for bookmarks and certificates and other settings that folks want to save from session to session... I look forward to getting my sister's up with LTSP, though. Seems like a good thing for a family.

smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature