[conspire] (forw) Re: install Edubuntu LTSP

[jkinz at kinz.org]

On Mon, Jan 05, 2009 at 04:21:20PM -0800, Rick Moen wrote:
> ----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> -----
> Quoting YFeldman at aol.com (YFeldman at aol.com):
> 
> > I want to install Edubuntu LTSP system at my home for my kids. But not sure 
> > how to set up thin clients. Do you offer any help o this?

Hi Rick, Yacov
Ubuntu is one of the official four distro's that have fully integrated
LTSP support. (As of Hardy Heron) Creating an LTSP installation with
Ubuntu is almost plug and play. 

Edubuntu is based on the LTSP enabled Ubuntu base so it would be a plug
and play scenario too.

the Edubuntu web pages point to the Ubuntu LTSP docs, 
including this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/LTSPQuickInstall

Which says :
The installer will set up an out of the box working LTSP install
for you if your server has two network cards built in. If that is
not the case it will tell you what to modify to run with a single
network card.
endquote

That sounds like it will work perfectly for Yacov.

I used LTSP before they did the work to recruit distro's into
integrating LTSP support directly into the distro's.  I created
my install using LTSP instructions and it was easy.  

I also used the K12LTSP distro which was a small distro that produced a
full working LTSP server install. 

In Here :
http://www.ltsp.org/~sbalneav/LTSPManual.html#installation It lists
Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSuse and Fedora as distro's with integrated support.
There are also unofficial claims that gentoo and alt linux from russia
will eventually or already do have integrated support.

>From a system administration POV, I heartily endorse the thin
client way of life. Throw away all those desktop hard drives!  

Thin clients today may be more accurately named "obese clients" Since
the "client" only needs to run X-windows, NFS, and few other programs,
all they need is enough RAM. Many run on 64 MB, I would go for 256
MB (or even 512) which is still "small" by todays desktop
standards. 

For purpose built thin clients always go overkill on the RAM. It
prevents resource limit problems.

Jeff Kinz