[K12OSN] Client Display/Boot Problem

[EDULIX]

Hi David!

I'm also using k12LTSP at home, and I really enjoy using always "my own computer", no matter in front of which computer I am "physically". I started the experience as a test installation of a proyect of mine, but I'm sure I'm not going to change the situation. Moreover, I can use my Linux in my father's pc which has only windows installed, and it boots fast :).

I had a problem similar to yours with my father's pc. The problem is that obviously the graphic card isn't recogniced automatically, therefore the X server (the usual graphic mode in linux) can't start successfully. 

The solution is to specify manually the driver that best suits you:

As you only want to specify it to that pc (because others are not likely to need that driver or even to configure it manually), firstly you need to specify it to be set to your terminal. In order to do that, you need to locate and name your old terminal. You need, to edit the file '/etc/dhcpd.conf', and add something like the code provided above after the block 'shared-network WORKSTATIONS { [.some lines..] }' :

group   {
    use-host-decl-names       on;

    # note that this need to be your server's ip:
    option log-servers        192.168.0.1;

    host old-machine {
        # this is the MAC address of the old thin terminal's network card:
        hardware ethernet     00:08:7F:54:32:5A;

        # maybe you'd like to specify a ip per machine so that
        # it does not change, or you can delete the line:
        fixed-address         192.168.0.100;
    }

    # Here you can specify more hosts like in the same way we've done with 'old-machine' host

}

You can find the old thin terminal's network card that it's needed executing the command above in a root shell:

(root shell)# ifconfig | grep HWaddr
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:E0:7D:E1:96:24

Finally it's time to specify the X server driver. I've been searching for a while about mach64, Xfree (the X server I've been mentioning all the time) and LTSP, and I've found what I thought: the problems is that the actual Xfree version (4.x) doesn't have drivers for old graphic cards, including yours. So you only need to tell to the server that it has to boot xfree 3.x instead of 4.x and it should work ahead.

So, let's edit the LTSP configuration file, the file '/opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf'. At the end of the file, add something like this:

[old-machine]
        XSERVER            = XFree86

Note that I don't know if that's the correct driver. in http://www.mail-archive.com/ltsp-discuss%40lists.sourceforge.net/msg17437.html someone with the same problem as your says that using Xfree 3.x simply solves the problem, but he didn't told us which driver he used. You can see by starting of the file we're editing a list of drivers (by the line 16 or so):

# Video drivers for the terminals
        XSERVER            = auto
            # XFree 4 drivers: ati cirrus cyrix fbdev i128 i740 i810 mga
            #      neomagic nv r128 radeon rendition s3 s3virge savage
            #      siliconmotion sis tdfx tga trident tseng vesa vga
            # XFree 3 drivers: XF86_FBDev XF86_S3 XF86_S3V XF86_SVGA
            #      XF86_VGA16 XFree86 Xvesa

As you can see, 'XFree86' is a XFree 3 driver. You could also try with Xvesa or XF86_SVGA, but I think that XFree86 is likely to solve the problem ;-).

Uhm, something you should know: When you've booted the thin terminal, you're not going to have access to local devices by default, nor sound. You need to especify the use of nasd as the sound server (are you using gnome or kde? I'm using kde 3.2 with sound, I could help to get it), and I'm still trying to configure the use local devices with a custom kernel (thanks frame and irc.freenode.net #ltsp channel for your help!).

Regards,
      Edulix.