[H-GEN] Distro advice

[Harry Phillips]

[ Humbug *General* list - semi-serious discussions about Humbug and     ]
[ Unix-related topics. Posts from non-subscribed addresses will vanish. ]

Recently on the list Knoppix was discussed and in the past Linux Terminal
Server Project (LTSP) has been mentioned. I liked things from both and would
like to combine parts of them.

If you are not familiar with them, a brief over view.
1. LTSP lets you boot on a floppy and runs a Remote X session.
2. Knoppix is a bootable CD that will autodetect your hardware and comes
with a preconfigured apps. (I tried it this morning and it was way cool.)

What I would like to do is boot the workstation from a floppy and then it
loads all the apps from the server, the difference from LTSP is that the
workstation does all the processing. My workstations are Celeron 1.7GHz with
no CD-ROMs while the server is a Duron 900Mhz.

The advantages would be that when application updates come out they can be
done on the server, authentication can be via LDAP, apps can be added and
removed as you saw fit, some apps would be available to some users but not
others, configuration of the apps could be done on the server, in other
words the whole PC would be centrally controlled.

I would imagine that the workstation would have a HDD for swap and caching
of apps. I think you would need some sort of checking mechanism at the
workstation to see if there was an application update when you first started
it. User specific settings would be saved to a share on the server (sort of
like NT profiles).

Does anyone know of anything like what I am describing?

The reason I ask is that I am in the process of setting up a Cyber lounge
and would like to cut down on the costs of licensing ($250/workstation just
for the OS starts addng up VERY quickly) and we also have complete control
of each PC (no Kazaa etc).

I also read with interest the discussion of setting up a Beowulf cluster. I
have 4 workstations so far  with a couple more being prepared over the next
week or so. All are identical, motherboards, video cards (GeForce 4's) CPU's
etc.

If anyone is interested we could set it up in at my location one Saturday. I
would love the publicity to advertise as we are on a tight budget (hence my
question above) and having "xxxxth most powerful computer in the world for a
day" would be pretty cool. Just watching you guys in action setting it up
would be worth it.

Regards
Harry
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.443 / Virus Database: 248 - Release Date: 10/01/03


--
* This is list (humbug) general handled by majordomo at lists.humbug.org.au .
* Postings to this list are only accepted from subscribed addresses of
* lists 'general' or 'general-post'.  See http://www.humbug.org.au/