[arkay]

Lucky for me I still had the post from yesterday up on my screen at work when I got here today.

Here tis:

Surfing the other day I found an interesting thread regarding Linux Terminal Services.

Schools are using it quite extensively around the world. In essence you run a linux server (front end machine), then use any old dumb PC as a terminal to connect to the server.

The terminal boots via the network directly from the server (in about 20 seconds), you log in as normal and are presented with a fully functional Linux desktop. I've done this at home with Suse 10.1 and it's extremely quick.

The benefit here is that:

1. You only need to adminster the server. Software updates are made in one place and are immediately available to all connected terminals.
2. The terminal can be any old discarded (unable to run a current version of windows) PC as long as it has network boot capability.
3. The PC does not require any moving parts. HDD's, cdroms, floppy's can all be removed. All that's needed is a small amount of ram, a cpu , motherboard and NIC.
4. All activity happens on the server, downloaded files, created documents etc all reside in the users home directory on the server so when you back up the server you capture everything.
5. In the case of schools you can set this up very cheaply. I can buy from a PC warehouse discarded PC's for $15 each that are more than enough for this, you can build a suitable server for under $1000. Assuming you also need to buy old CRT displays for $20 each you could deck out a 30 PC classroom for:

30x$15=$450 (discarded PC's, now usable instead of being landfill)
30x$20=$600 (monitors)
1x$1000=$1000 (server)
1x$500=$500 (network switch).
1x$200=$200 (network cabling)

$2750 for a 30 seat PC based classroom with NO software cost. Additionally because everything moving (barring the HSF and power supply fan), is removed hardware failure is kept to a minimum.

Additional to that the teacher can be set up to be able to connect to and watch/interact with any one of the terminal sessions. This provides the teacher the ability to monitor students progress, offer suggestions, show them how to do something or plain just make sure they're behaving.

Testing this at home took 30 minutes of setup to get the first client running. Adding new clients now is a matter of plugging them into the network. I then used my wifes PC via network boot and BANG, in 20 seconds I was logging into a fully enabled Suse desktop. Speed wise it was excellent, fast enough in fact to playback avi files in real time over 100MB network with no frame drops. I'll be very interested to try live tv (when I get time). All internet access was happening via the server (and can therefore be administered, protected etc from the server for the kids etc).

I have gigabit ethernet at home so I can run 10x100MB/sec terminals simultaneously before requiring a second NIC in my machine (and that's assuming full utilisation)

With a little extra configuration it is possible to configure the server to pass audio to the internal audio card on the terminal so you can get sound on the terminal. It is also possible to use the local devices on the terminal (floppy, usb sticks etc).

You can configure dhcp based on the Mac address of the client NIC so that one "client" for instance might boot a fully functional mythtv frontend where others are set up to be workstations or any other custom image you like. Each workstation can be configured individually for desktop resolution, mouse type etc etc..

It's absolutely amazing to see this in action.

On top of that I have vmware installed on the server with an instance of XP installed. I need this for Quicken (which doesn't run under linux). The beauty is that my wife can use quicken from her client desktop, or I can use it from mine, but it's always the same instance of quicken so there's no multiple licences required, printers, scanners etc are all available directly on the server so there's no complicated device sharing required and I don't have to back up her important files on her machine at all cause now they live on the server.

In a classroom or office environment you can use citrix on win2k or server 2003 to supply access to any windows application that's required. Users can then access any of those apps directly on their terminals.

There are articles on the net where entire call centers have been set up this way with each terminal having a VOIP headset attached so calls can be made/received.

The potential for this is huge when you sit down and think about it.

At present my home server is capable of:

1. Running all my desktop access throughout the entire house.
2. Recording all my tv and supplying that to other devices around the house (no, I'm not doing this....yet).
3. Acting as a firewall and NetNanny type device for all internet access.
4. Is all centrally managed and backed up.
5. Handle Voip trafic to/from any connected terminal (not doing this yet either).
6. Supply what windows apps I need to any connected terminal.
7. Supplying all media to any device in the house. (again all central storage and management).

I'm sure there's more I haven't even thought of yet.

and the best bit. There is no need to have to manage the OS's, software, security, networking etc for each individual box. If any of the boxes die, replace it with another $15 box and I'm only running 1 OS.

Because Linux is so efficient in terms of memory and CPU utilisation it takes a lot of terminals connected and working to actually use the resources in the server to full capacity. My P4 3.2 Ghz HT with 1gb ram would easily handle the day to day of 5 pc's in my house (probably 20 of them!).

Cheers,

Arkay.