[ale] LTSP

[Greg Clifton]

Hi Josh,

I don't know anything about running thin clients [yet], but hardware is
super cheap these days. You can get a 320 GB notebook drive for ~ $59 (just
check whether you have a SATA or IDE drive before you buy) and a complete,
very powerful though not current generation desktop system for well under
$500 inclusive of 19-24" LCD monitor. Or just a 19" LCD monitor for ~ $99.00
and you could probably get a cast off CRT for free. I know they gave away a
bunch at the last Asterisk install fest. So if those numbers don't break the
piggy bank, KISS and go the upgrade or complete system route.

Two good deal sites I visit regularly are gotapex.com and dealnews.com along
with newegg.com and tigerdirect.com. Often you can get free delivery and no
sales tax with these deals.

All the Best,
GC

On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 9:44 AM, Joshua Kite <jwkite at gmail.com> wrote:

> The Windows laptop that my young boys have been using for the past year is
> finally giving up the ghost.  We gave it to them when we thought the hard
> drive was going to die, but it's somehow managed to creep along.  I have an
> opportunity to buy a very reasonably priced older Dell 650 workstation which
> would be more than sufficient for anything they would want to do.  My plan
> is to install Ubuntu since they like playing all of the games installed on
> my desktop.
>
> I don't currently have a monitor lying around, and I'd rather avoid buying
> something else, if at all possible, so I was wondering if I could make the
> "new" workstation an LTSP server (probably using Edubuntu) and run the
> laptop as a client, possibly as a dual boot in the rare event that they
> needed to use something that wouldn't run on Wine.  My research has led to
> three questions which are probably obvious, but I may have to make a buy
> decision today, and I'm running out of Googlefu.
>
> 1) Assuming a decent server and a hardwired network, how well would games
> play in such a setup?  Their favorite at the moment is Extreme Tux Racer.
> 2) Are there any issues in using a laptop as a thin client?
> 3) If I later wanted to put a monitor and keyboard on the workstation,
> could it continue to act as a LTSP server to the client while someone was
> using it as a desktop?
>
> If any of you have insight that you think would be useful for a moderately
> competent Linux user who has never worked with Terminal Servers, I would
> greatly appreciate it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Josh Kite
>
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