More hardware is (almost) ALWAYS a good thing!! When I did the APS 7 school project, a single Proliant DL385 G1 was used for 100 clients. two dual core Opteron and 8 GB RAM per application server plus a separate RAID5 SAS drive system for /home. See here for some specs: <a href="%20http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ltsp/index.php?title=Ltsp_SuccessStories#Local_Net_Solutions_installs_7_school_LTSP_pilot_for_Atlanta_Public_Schools">Ltsp_SuccessStories#Local_Net_Solutions_installs_7_school_LTSP_pilot_for_Atlanta_Public_Schools</a> The only issues we really hit was flash eating up all resources (as flash is so good at doing) when 3-4 classrooms would all hit the same web pages with a zillion flash blinkies all over. Streaming flash video was a nightmare. This was before local apps were developed. You don't specify RAM for the newly donated machines so I can't offer advice on specific designs. But you appear to have a powerful enough stack of servers in the donated batch to be quite successful. I do suggest to disable hyperthreading in the bios on those Xeons as cache thrashing becomes an issue under any load. <div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 12:28 AM, Joseph Bishay <<a href="mailto:joseph.bishay@gmail.com">joseph.bishay@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"> Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well and had an enjoyable long weekend. A few weeks back I received some excellent advice with regards to setting up a new LTSP network in our new elementary school building. I had already sourced out the parts and was just about to order them when a donation arrived at my door! I received 5 servers with the following specifications: 1) One Proliant DL580 G3 4U rackmount server (2 Dual-Xeon (4 threads total) running at 3 Ghz. 2) FOUR Super p4DP8-G2 2U rackmount servers (Each has 2 Dual-core Xeon (4 threads total) running at 2.40 Ghz, 512 KB cache, 4 GB RAM (max is 64 GB) with Adaptec 2010s RAID controller and hot-swappable drives. So I wanted to mention these machines to see if I can utilize them for our LTSP network if possible, or should I stick with my original plan which was using another machine that we have: Intel i5 with 12 GB RAM, PCI-E SSD boot drive, Raid 1 SATA drives for /home Granted the newly donated machines are all server-grade, with redundant power supplies, etc as compared to the i5 which is a custom desktop build. We need to power about 65 thin clients in the new building -- and for many in the building this will be the first foray into Linux (which they are nervous about) so I want the setup to wow them. Thanks very much! Joseph _______________________________________________ K12OSN mailing list <a href="mailto:K12OSN@redhat.com">K12OSN@redhat.com</a> <a href="https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn" target="_blank">https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn</a> For more info see <<a href="http://www.k12os.org" target="_blank">http://www.k12os.org</a>> </blockquote></div> -- -- James P. Kinney III As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome. - 2011 Noam Chomsky <a href="http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/</a>