[K12OSN] Diskless Workstation Recommendation

[jam at mcquil.com]

On Fri, 12 Mar 2004, Jim Kronebusch wrote:

> I am going to buy a couple of workstations from
> disklessworkstations.com.  Do any of you have a recommendation of which
> system to go with?  I of course want to keep the cost down so I was
> looking at the Term 150 and 150e instead of the Jammin 125 or the Compaq
> t5X00.  I don't however understand why the 125 costs more with slower
> components, is there some other advantage to this system?  Also if I go
> with one of the 150 versions is there an advantage to using Etherboot
> over PXE or vice versa?  I want whichever system will provide the best
> performance, and be out-of-the-box compatible.

The J-125's are more expensive, because our price is higher from the 
supplier in Taiwan.  Not much we can do about that.  People still like 
them because of the form factor.

For LTSP and k12ltsp, the T-150 with PXE is an excellent choice.  
k12ltsp comes ready to boot pxe without any modifications to the system.
Basically, plug it in, turn it on and log in.

If you prefer Etherboot, then the T-150e is the way to go.  One thing 
that Etherboot gives you is some flexibility.  We can customize the 
Etherboot bootrom for different DHCP Port addresses, and we can 
customize bootroms for other reasons. In one case, we made bootroms that 
only did BOOTP and not DHCP.  With PXE, we don't have that flexibility.

>  
> I am leaning towards the LTSP Term 150.

Again, in a straight LTSP environment, where you have control of the 
DHCP servers, the T-150 is an excellent way to go.

>  
> Also those of you who have used these, are the local USB's recognized by
> default for use with a scanner or for uploading digital pictures or
> attaching an external CDROM,printer etc?

The usb ports are recognized by the Linux kernel, so thats no problem.
Printing works great, but there isn't any software for ANY of the thin 
clients for uploading digital pictures.  There is a scanner package on
the ltsp.org site, but i've not tried it and i've not heard anybody 
talking about it for quite a while.

You can be assured that as we continue to enhance LTSP, the T-150 will 
be playing a very important role, and it is our intent to continue to 
make sure that it works in every way with LTSP.

<shameless_plug>
 And best of all, by purchasing from DisklessWorkstations.Com, you are
 helping to fund the LTSP.org project.
</shameless_plug>

Thanks,
Jim McQuillan
jam at DisklessWorkstations.Com
jam at Ltsp.org

>  
> Thanks
> 
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