I just got back from visiting Kamloops school district here in Canada. http://www.sd73.bc.ca/district-operations.php/page/linux-in-education/
Their goal is to switch their entire district to Linux diskless clients and they are doing it. However, they are not using 100% LTSP. They use bits of ltsp to pxe boot their clients and mount / over nfs and they use NIS or LDAP for auth but they DO NOT use XDMCP or ssh to shoot the display over the network. Everything runs locally. Every new client is an AMD Sempron cpu with 512MB (easily powerful enough to run everything locally). The clients are almost the same price as many thin clients. About $250 CAD. They are actually using a modified Muekow ltsp implementation built in house inside a virtual private server http://linux-vserver.org/Welcome_to_Linux-VServer.org Kind of like a super chroot environ that requires a patched kernel. (Not a virtual machine like Xen or VMware) The clients are still diskless. But since everything runs locally there is no traditional problems associated with ltsp. Like having an entire classroom (30 clients) watch a full screen youtube video (flash). Or fullscreen quicktime/mpeg4 video (remember you are streaming [over nfs] the highly compressed video file in exchange for cpu power required to decompress it). Or have a Beryl 3D enabled student desktops. Or 30 kids playing GNU/Chess. Good luck doing these things with traditional thin client ltsp. I don't care if you have a dual Opteron, it's still going to fall to it's knees. The nfs server at Barriere Secondary serves the entire school: approx. 115 clients. Local devices like USB sticks: no problem, each client is running a full blown OS. No need for ltspfs. All clients run Xvnc so support for the district techs is a snap since they can fix things remotely. LTSP 5 has this ability as it uses the distro packages instead of it's own and is much easier to implement local apps. In my mind, this is the future of ltsp. Kamloops is just ahead of the curve because they realized that if their initiative was to be successful they didn't want any of the limitations of ltsp while still having the advantages. Clients are diskless centrally managed appliances. Plug it in and it works, advantages that ltsp has always had. Some may say apps take longer to load over nfs. This may be true but if you configure your network properly you can address this. Gigabit switch backbone. Port trunking. Another solution I like, use multiple gigabit nics in your nfs server on different subnets connected to separate switches as described here. http://k12ltsp.org/mediawiki/index.php/Technical:Subnetting Thereby, creating dedicated bandwidth for different parts of a school and preventing bottlenecks. In any case, once an app is loaded it's fast and if you happen to shutdown the app (say Firefox) and start it again the machine does not take nearly as long to launch it again because apps are cached locally in the memory of the client machine (remember the 512MB). The only down side is power consumption as compared to real thin clients. However, having said this I know that most people running ltsp are using old hardware as thin clients which are not energy efficient. However, I believe the advantages outweigh this issue especially when you have to compare them to stand alone Windows labs. Having said this, those AMD Semprons are actaully a pretty efficient cpu. Part of the reason local apps have not gained as much momentum in ltsp circles is that the raison d'etre of ltsp was that you didn't have to purchase new clients. Simply re-deploy existing old boxes (As I and many others have done) as thin clients. So after a few years and ltsp was seen as a viable solution people kept the "Run it on the server" ideology. Even though the price difference between new real thin clients and relatively powerful diskless clients has almost disappeared. My last point, the nfs servers in Kamloops are actually hybrid servers. They actaully have scripts to determine how powerful a client is at boot time then decide how many apps (all or some) will run locally. So the nfs server is also a traditional ltsp server. This, I believe, is a stop gap measure until all their clients are replaced with new ones. Here is the specs of the desktop systems they are using: Not sure who their supplier is but I checked the prices on the parts they are using on newegg Case ($40 USD ) Apex Supercase DM317 http://www.apextechusa.com/products.asp?pID=4 Motherboard ($63 USD ) BioStar AM2 6100 Mainboard http://www.biostar.com.tw/products/mainboard/board.php?name=GeForce%206100%20AM2 Processor (Actually the Sempron 3000+ is now $41 USD) AM2 Sempron 2800 http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_11599_11604,00.html RAM ( $35 USD ) 512mb KINGSTON DDR-2 667 memory http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurator_new/PartsInfo.asp?root=&LinkBack=&ktcpartno=KVR667D2N5/512 ***For a grand total of $179 USD*** A couple of points: -The TX series cases, have some mini towers, although a little bigger than the DM series they are probably quieter because of the bigger PSU fan -There is a similar motherboard made by a division of asus called Asrock with some additional features as compared to the Biostar. Although Kamloops is not using this one since it's just released: http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=ALiveNF6G-DVI -parallel printer port -gigabit nic -dual independent video output with a DVI card It's selling for $69 USD (there are some reviews on newegg) and here is a linux compatibility review of it from last Dec. http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/showproduct.php/product/3686 Although nvidia has come out with newer binary drivers since then so *maybe* the pci id is no longer an issue. It's only $6 more than the Biostar and you can run 2 displays (as long as one monitor supports DVI) plus a gigabit nic. Well worth it in my opinion. -- Robert Arkiletian Eric Hamber Secondary, Vancouver, Canada Fl_TeacherTool http://www3.telus.net/public/robark/Fl_TeacherTool/ C++ GUI tutorial http://www3.telus.net/public/robark/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. 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