Topic: Thin Clients

[Tue Arnkil]

Is there any documentation/experience on e-smith as a server for Thin Clients ?

[Patrick Basile]

I'd also be very interested in responses to this post/question - thanks!

[John Goodwin]

Hi all,

I've looked into the idea of trying the ltsp package out on an e-smith box, but you really need an x environment, so I'm thinking other distro's may be a better fit, though there is nothing preventing you from installing x windows on e-smith that I know of.  I'll be interested to see the responses!

[benoit brosseau]

i have a 15 ltsp lab running on red hat it took me 32 min o set it up. install dhcp,tftp, ltsp,webmin,webmin ltsp module and ... there is no step 3...

[Patrick Basile]

Benoit - Thanks for responding with your setup and experience with ltsp.  I am a Linux newbie, and wasn't aware of ltsp - but I'm happy to see it is an option.  I was looking into Win2k server for Terminal Services capability, but this MAY be an option - certainly a cheaper alternative.

To all - Could ltsp be incorporated into an e-smith/SME V5 server installation?  If so, has anyone done this.  It would be a KILLER feature - one I think lots of people would love to have the option of running on their "all in one" e-smith/SME boxes.  (Just curious in other responses, so please - respond.)

Regards to everyone,
Patrick

[erik de wild]

The idead of a making a thin client network at home is apealing. Using cheap old clients and cheap servers. I'm not an expert in this field but I have had a redhat 7.1 pc running at home. Installing redhat an adding packages is not that difficult. I've done some searching and I've found the internet adres below.

http://www.magnifix.com/mag-prod/thin-client.html

I think it makes no sence to combine the functionalities of e-smith with an e-smith thin client server. It seems to be more logic to configure it on a separate PC in the network. It can't be that hard to integrate it into a computer network. I wonder if it is possible to work on diferent platforms (linux, mac OS, windows). That would be really interesting.

I looking forward to other postings.


With friendly regards

Erik de Wild

[Buddy Edwards]

E-smith is not designed to be anything more than a File/Web Server similar to Novell if you are in need of a Linux X-Based Application Server spend some of the money that you saved by going linux and invest in a decent computer that is intended for this purpose.  Why break a perfectly capable system when you can download for free a copy of redhat 7.1 and configure it yourself.  I have seen many posts as of late about Thin Clients and I ask myself the same question I ask when I am configuring a NT network, do I really want to put all my eggs in one basket.  A server should be specialized whenever possible for a several reasons.

1. Security
2. Reliability
3. Scalibility
4. and of course, Performance.

With computer equipment as affordable as it is, why go cheap when you don't have to.

[Tom Brown]

I set up a k12ltsp network. It certainly took me more than 30 minutes the first time. I have three Pentium 133-166 boxes as thin clients and one ThinkNIC on the LAN. I intend to expand the network to 10 boxes in a month or two.

After following the posts re thin clients, I have to vote for two servers. Both e-smith and ltsp/k12ltsp use template files and will potentially over-write each other in some instances. I don't have an e-smith box running yet so I can't say from experience. I think an e-smith box as a lightweight file server, gateway and firewall makes sense. The ltsp/k12ltsp box needs to be more robust because it is an application server. The recommendation for an ltsp server is 50 MB of RAM for each thin client, high quality NIC and dual cpu mobos and SCSI drives in large networks.

[Jeb Bateman]

I setup LTSP under SuSE 7.1 last summer.  The cool thing is that the DHCP/boot system doesn't have to be the same as the system clients login to via X or telnet.  Therefore, I was thinking about putting the LTSP core package on e-smith, and then configuring it to send the X login to another system on the network (Debian, Red Hat, or SuSE).  The main advantage to this is that the e-smith already handles DHCP, and has a nice web admin interface which can be extended.  The dissadvantage is that it might take some work to extend it in this way, and make sure things don't get stomped on.  That might be a big enough problem that I can't tackle it right now, and will end up just turning off the DHCP server on the e-smith instead.  But, long term, I think having LTSP core integrated into e-smith via a special RPM will be a good thing.