[K12OSN] LTSP on same network as Windows

[Jim McQuillan]

guys,  Don't lose sight of the fact that one of the important things to
think about is "Expected level of performance".

I'm seeing recommendations of gigabit uplinks for more than 10 clients.

I've got 140 thin clients on a single network.  about 60 of those are
running at 10 mbit/sec, while the rest are running at 100 mbit/sec.
No gigabit, anywhere on the network.

And...... The performance is fine.  They aren't running fancy multimedia
apps, but they are doing OpenOffice and Mozilla, and a bunch of Xterms.

Now granted, this is a business installation, and schools are a bit more
demanding, but it is still amazing how many thin clients you can run
with fairly modest hardware and networking infrastructure.

If you are in a position where you are starting out with all new
equipment, then you might as well go for the gigabit network.

But, if cost is really an issue, and you are using existing hardware,
don't be afraid to just set it up and use it.  The performance will
likely be adequate.

In most cases, people are plenty happy to have any computers at all,
even if they aren't the fastest computers available.

Jim McQuillan
jam at Ltsp.org


On Sat, Aug 21, 2004 at 04:52:52PM -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
> On Sat, 2004-08-21 at 15:04, Yancey B. Jones wrote:
> 
> > I have installed gigabit switches on each floor with full compliance CAT5E
> > cable running to the server room. We are looking at about 50-75 thin clients
> > spread throughout the school. I can add separate switches if necessary, I
> > just want to make sure that it is necessary before I ask for them. The
> > entire network will consist of approximately 100 Windows XP Pro clients for
> > students, 50 Windows clients for teachers/staff, and eventually about 75
> > thin clients.
> 
> Gig uplinks from the server and a gig backbone across switches
> sounds like enough.  The client nics will probably be 100M
> anyway.
> 
> > The thin clients will be in "clusters" of 3-4 and I am planning on using a
> > 5-port 10/100 switch at each "cluster" to reduce the number of cable runs.
> 
> Still should be OK - at somewhere around 10 clients you might want
> a switch with a gig uplink.
> 
> > We will install one LTSP server at first,
> > when we reach capacity on that one then we will put a second one in. Will a
> > need a separate network for each LTSP server or can the be load balanced
> > somehow?
> 
> The 'thin client lab' might be the place to drop the 2nd server
> since it would be convenient to isolate that traffic with a
> 2-NIC setup and separate switch.  Are you going to have a
> separate server for home directories?  That way they could be
> samba-shared to the windows clients without additional load on
> the k12ltsp server and it will make it easy to add the 2nd
> ltsp server.
> 
> ----
>   Les Mikesell
>     les at futuresource.com
> 
> 
> 
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