RE: [school-discuss] LTSP First Time - why not net-boot?

[Richard Wraith <rgw@trinity.unimelb.edu.au>]

Daniel,

Looks like it is now time for your to do some testing and experimenting.
Why not grab a couple of machines, set one up as a client and one as the
server and see what happens. It will be the best guide to what you are
likely to experience and will help you learn to set things up for the lab.

Cheers,

Richard

-- 
Dr Richard Wraith                             rgw@trinity.unimelb.edu.au
Director of IT & T and the Trinity Learning Innovation Centre
Trinity College   Royal Parade   Parkville   3052   Victoria   Australia
tel: +61-3-9348 7112      mobile: 0417 361 093      fax: +61-3-9348 7498

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 daniel.hunt@iibbank.ie wrote:

> Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 09:47:27 +0100
> From: daniel.hunt@iibbank.ie
> Reply-To: schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net
> To: schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net
> Subject: RE: [school-discuss] LTSP First Time - why not net-boot?
>
> Well I'm currently looking into it ... but I'd still sway towards a beast of
> a server. There's only going to be one server, so I'd rather it out
> performed it's requirements than it proved to be about as useful to the
> school as a bowl of custard.
>
> I'd possibly consider downgrading it to a single processor, possibly and AMD
> (maybe an A64 for the extra "ummph") and that would definitely free up some
> cash for the network modifications.
>
> As it stands there are currently two 24port switches on the network - one is
> all 100Lan and the other is all 10Lan (the machines are capable of 100, but
> the switch is useless)
>
> It would make sense to have the one copy of the games remotely on the
> server, but as soon as 4/5 people start playing the network could well slow
> to a crawl as it transfers the 3/400 megs required for the game to play. not
> to mention the RAM in the clients would have to be able to hold it all ...
> so I could be looking at upping the clients to a gig of RAM each?
>
> Plus, it's very likely that there'll be some multimedia elements used ... I
> can't be certain, but I can't leave them with no choice but not to use it
> you know?
>
> Daniel
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Wraith [mailto:rgw@trinity.unimelb.edu.au]
> Sent: 15 April 2004 01:14
> To: schoolforge-discuss@schoolforge.net
> Subject: RE: [school-discuss] LTSP First Time - why not net-boot?
>
>
> Daniel,
>
> It is pretty clear that LTSP is not going to meet the gaming requirement
> for your lab. Multimedia stuff, particularly games, will really kill an
> LTSP server and the user experience won't be a contented one.
>
> On the other hand net-booting will do it nicely - as long as you have
> sufficient RAM in the clients, at least 256MB and more if you can manage
> it.
>
> As I said before there is no need for a local HD, even to run the games.
> In fact it is better not to. The games should be in a directory on the
> server that is NFS mounted on the clients. The teacher can then just
> change the permissions on the games directory when she/he wants to
> enable/disable access to the games in class. You could simplify the
> permissions change with a little script.
>
> As for the server, you won't need a beast for net-booting though it might
> be useful for it to have up to a GB of RAM and with 45 clients it might
> be helpful to have a GB interface to your network. If you could get or
> have access to a single 48 port or two stacked 24 port switches with a
> least one GB port on it you would have a rather nice setup. So rather than
> spend your money on the sever spend it on your network switches and RAM
> for your clients.
>
> If you don't need the gaming (and for that matter demanding multimedia)
> requirement then LTSP or net-booting will both be fine.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Richard
>
>
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