Re: [school-discuss] Major Linux school deployments

[Dean Montgomery <dmonty@xxxxxxxxxx>]

----- "David M. Bucknell" <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> This sounds fantastic.  Looking for client hardware.  Want to do  
> something similar, but am finding it hard to find decent thin client 
> hardware.  Too slow or limited.  Would love to hear how wrong I am.

Our diskless clients are ~$200 each - price goes up and down with the economy.

* MOBO: MCP6P M2+ 
* RAM: 1G
* CPU: AMD Sempron(tm) Processor LE-1250
* Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 6150 GPU
* http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/content.php?S_ID=370

===
About 3-4 years ago we were re-cycling used computers as hybrid diskless-ltsp clients.  But we wanted to give end-users a better experience.  We now run pure diskless clients which gives us:
* good 3d accelerated graphics support.
* good sound/video create/listen/edit support.
* good usb device support (thumb-drives, ipods, cameras, external dvd-drives, etc)
* less bandwidth needed for diskless - compared to ltsp.


==============
Below is a comparison list that we put together a while back...

=== Implementing Linux in your School(s) ===

There are 3 options:
1.LTSP – Linux Terminal Server Project.
2.Diskless.  (with ability to run software on server)
3.Fat Client.


#1 LTSP Pros:
-Easy to install and configure software.
-Been around a long time.
-Lots of related software and support.
-Supports very slow hardware with very little RAM.
-Supports 30-50 workstations per server.
-Installing software is easy - appears on all workstations.
#1 LTSP Cons:
-Can bog down the server.
-Sound and 3d acceleration do not work well.
-USB/Firewire/CDROM/Floppy etc can be tricky.
-Everything runs on the server so it can get bogged down with too much activity.
-Screen flickers when scrolling or heavy graphical games.
-Re-using old hardware means old hardware maintenance.
-Does not yet work well with wireless networks.

#2 Diskless Pros:
-USB/Firewire/CDROM/Floopy are nicely integrated in the desktop environment.
-Server does not get bogged down.  Users are not affected by a single user's cpu intensive programs.
-3d acceleration and sound work great as long as the cipset is supported by linux.
-Hardware is faster/cheaper in 2007 (not forced to use slow hardware with 32MB ram).
-Supports over 100 workstations per server.
-Uses less network bandwidth.
#2 Diskless Cons:
-Requires faster hardware and more ram on the client.  800Mhz CPU, 500MB RAM min.
-Relatively new for schools so there is not as much out-of-the-box support for diskless.  The technitian has to do more -configuration.
-Does not yet work well with wireless networks.

#3 Fat Client Pros:
-Relatively easy to create an initial image and ghost.
-USB/CDROM/etc hardware are nicely integrated into the desktop environment.
-Low network bandwidth.
-Wireless network works well.
-3d acceleration and sound work well.
#3 Fat Client Cons:
-Updating software requires updating all hard drives (not centralized).
-Changes and tweaks require addressing each workstation.
-- 
Dean Montgomery
Network Support Tech./Programmer
dmonty@xxxxxxxxxx
School District #73