[K12OSN] Fwd: "Stateless Linux" project

[Les Mikesell]

On Mon, 2004-09-13 at 20:44, Jim McQuillan wrote:
> The 'Stateless Linux' project does look pretty interesting, but from 
> what I can tell, they are targetting fairly powerful hardware as the 
> thin client.   In a business, where they can afford to buy all new
> thin clients, that's fine, but in a school environment, that's not
> typically the type of hardware you get.

There are lots of machines in the P3 450 range on the used market
for $99 or so, and the speed of boxes coming off lease is creeping
up.

> Just try to imagine running applications locally on an old Compaq with 
> 16 or 32mb of ram and a Pentium 100.

On the other hand it seems like a waste to run everything on the
server if you have cycles to spare on your client.

> Still, they've got some cool ideas cooking.  The great thing about open 
> source is that whatever they come up with, if it turns out to be a good 
> idea, we can adapt it to our needs too :)

I think the ideal scenario would be a variation of openmosix
where processes could run only on your own desktop or
a designated set of servers to avoid the issue of someone
else kicking their power cord and losing your work.  Next
best would be a choice of running ltsp-style thin clients
on weak hardware and something more like a network-booted
knoppix on faster boxes but with common authentication
and home directory mounts - and some way to deal with the
security issues of nfs when the client has root access.

---
  Les Mikesell
    les at futuresource.com