Re: [school-discuss] Re: Linux Terminal Server

[ian <ian.lynch@zmsl.com>]

On Sun, 2004-04-04 at 23:38, Karsten M. Self wrote:
> on Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 08:46:31AM -0500, Jason Yeoman (jyeoman@bhncdsb.edu.on.ca) wrote:
> > ***********************
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> > 
> > 
> > Hi Emilio,
> > 
> > We have been beta testing the K-12 Linux Terminal server project and it's
> > very simple to setup.  The web site is http://www.k12ltsp.org/
> > 
> > Once you download the CD's you simply install on a server (the more ram
> > and higher processor speed the better).  It sounds like you need boot
> > disks which are included with the server.  The website has support and
> > documentation.
> 
> Does anyone have current server recommendations?  The existing docs are
> from the 2000 timeframe.  Or 1.5 Moore's epochs ago.  Which would argue
> for about 1-2 GiB and 1.7 - 3.4 GHz on a 4-5 spindle RAID5 filesystem,
> if my ballpark is accurate.
> 
> I'm looking at a server for 10-30 clients (growing out the system).


The least expensive way is to use a server with as much low cost memory
as you can fit in - last time I looked this was 3 or 4 512 Mb sticks as
1 meg ones were disproportionately expensive though this might have
changed. Single processor at the best price/performance ie not the
fastest available as these cost a lot for very little improvement and an
IDE hard drive (As long as there is enough RAM to stop the server
swapping between RAM and disk there is not a great deal of advantage in
SCSI and RAID considering the additional cost. If swapping takes place
the thing will run like a drain even with a SCSI RAID system). For 10
clients one such server should be fine, for 30 you probably need 2
depending on the apps run. You might well find two servers as above are
less expensive and better performance than one all singing and dancing
device. Also cheap to upgrade. One reason why Windows users buy very
expensive servers is that you have to pay software licences for each
server and so it gets disproportionately more expensive to add servers.
Having two servers is nice because you have redundancy should one fail.
Ok it will be slower but at least you can work. Expensive cases with
redundant power supplies and RAID are not much help if the motherboard
fails.

Answer to the iMAC question is no, but anything from old IBM P100s to up
to date machines with no disc drives.
-- 
ian <ian.lynch@zmsl.com>