how-to for x-terminal newbie

[Les Mikesell]

On Thu, 2005-05-12 at 11:55, Duncan Lithgow wrote:
> >
> >If you want to set up a system specifically for this, check out the
> >k12ltsp distribution which has rebuilt fedora ISOs which will
> >come up ready to network-boot thin clients so you don't even have
> >to install anything on them.
> >
> >  
> >
> As XDMC seemed to quickly give a response and do something (i'm not sure 
> what yet) I might as well go with that, it is already part of the fedora 
> core base installation after all.
> 
> Of course it isn't working yet, I took the harddrive out of the laptop 
> to be sure it'd try a network boot, and it did. So, now I'm getting:
> 
> CLIENT MAV ADDR: etc... GUID etc...
> PXE-E51: No DHCP or proxyDHCP offers were received.

There are two different things involved here.  XDMCP just gives
you the ability to get a graphic login from X running on another
box (and after the login, the desktop and apps will run there).
However, you still have make the laptop run X yourself.  You can
install enough Linux for that, or run the Cygwin version under
MS-windows, or boot a run-from-CD version of Linux into text
mode and start X manually with the
X -query your_server command I mentioned earlier.  I'd try one
of these first, probably a knoppix CD, entering 'knoppix 2' at the
boot prompt to make it start in text mode.

If you want to network-boot the laptop, you need to set up additional
software.  You can either add the ltsp package to your existing server
or reinstall from the k12ltsp distribution which will have what you
need built-in.  This part basically just loads linux over the
network to the point where you have X running, then does the XDMCP
login as above.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    les at futuresource.com