[H-GEN] Diskless boxes for internet access

[Martin Pool]

On Fri, 9 Jan 1998, Steve Pinel wrote:

> So in summary, I either have to set the machines up as X-servers, or boost
> the RAM to about 16Mb?  Would 12Mb do in each machine?
> 
> Using a Linux server, I would need about 64Mb RAM for four X-terms.  Fair
> enough.

I'd reckon -- and you should validate this yourself -- a P100 with 64MB
running netscape (the X client, in the a-over-t X11 terminology) in the
middle, and individual machines running X servers and little else with
perhaps 486s and 12MB.

The nice thing is that the central machine can scale relatively easily,
and that new terminals are very cheap.  (In theory, anyhow.)

We have three linux machines in this room, and NFS mounts and SSH
connections make them seem like one big machine.  You can easily run a big
compile on the fastest machine, for example, while sending the output (via
emacs :-)) onto your home machine.  Froody.

> I've never played with setting up an X-term before (and I'm fairly recent to
> Linux in general as well).   My understanding is that I can set them up as
> X-terms by runing Linux on the machines, but then running Netscape on the
> server, but directing the video output to the boxes over the network.  Not
> sure about the terminology, but am i on the right track?

Yep.

(The machine on the desktop is the `X server': it offers the service of
displaying things on the machine to other computers on the network.  This
seems backwards because the machines not on the desk are typically big
expensive ones that act as servers in other respects.  Calling one the
`display server' and the other the `compute server' can help.) 

--
Martin Pool, Pharos

The Leatherman is another useful tool, the Perl of swiss army knifes.
                                 -- asr FAQ


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