Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on December 09, 2002 10:03 PM
Your first stop will be www.ltsp.org (Linux Terminal Server Project). For basic office capabilities (GUI, sound, printing) you can install their server rpms and make a boot disk for your client and have it up and running in less than an hour.
For a total desktop replacement, however, this is more challenging and on the fringe. Sharing your USB digicam, cd burner, etc, is not as easy (but it's possible!). I'm undergoing this challenge right now; I moved my noisy main box down into the closet under the stairs and now all my client machines (including my print server) have no hard drives. I'm keeping a log so that when I'm done I'll post my results (probably at ltsp.org) for others to follow.
Keep in mind that while OpenGL apps should run fine, many games (particularly page-flipping games such as SDL games) will run poorly when shared over a network, since they blast a whole screen of graphics 30+ times a second, regardless of whether any pixels changed or not. If they use standard X graphics, not a problem. Business apps, compilers, etc, may actually appear to run faster than locally, since the server doesn't have to worry about pushing pixels around.
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Re:PLEASE!! -- thin client howtos --
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on December 09, 2002 10:03 PMFor a total desktop replacement, however, this is more challenging and on the fringe. Sharing your USB digicam, cd burner, etc, is not as easy (but it's possible!). I'm undergoing this challenge right now; I moved my noisy main box down into the closet under the stairs and now all my client machines (including my print server) have no hard drives. I'm keeping a log so that when I'm done I'll post my results (probably at ltsp.org) for others to follow.
Keep in mind that while OpenGL apps should run fine, many games (particularly page-flipping games such as SDL games) will run poorly when shared over a network, since they blast a whole screen of graphics 30+ times a second, regardless of whether any pixels changed or not. If they use standard X graphics, not a problem. Business apps, compilers, etc, may actually appear to run faster than locally, since the server doesn't have to worry about pushing pixels around.
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