[K12OSN] Slow speed

[Mark Raine]

This may sound simple but we have noticed a big increase in speed by
decreasing the client resolution. just a thought.



On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 10:37:25 -0500, Jeff Kinz wrote
> On Sat, Jan 22, 2005 at 10:22:05AM  0100, Bjørn Roger Rasmussen wrote:
> > Now with K12LTSP as system the people at the school are complaining about 
> > the speed. High response time when they shall start or use normally 
> > programs etc.
> 
> > Before I began to run K12LTSP I used Skolelinux 
> > school liked that solution, but it was a night mare for me to maintain the 
> > network. I did not get any complaint about the speed when I run Skolelinux.
> 
> Does this mean that you used to run all your systems with local hard
> drives?  If so, then your current slowness problems is a result of
> either your network, or your server.
> 
> > - Intel P 4 1.6 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB IDE harddisk WD with 8 MB cache. 100 
> > Mbit/s network.
> 
> I suspect that since you have a 100 Mbit network, assuming all the
> thin clients are using 100 Mbit cards and not 10 Mbit cards, that 
> your problem is your server, not your network. Specifically you have 
> three potential weak points in your server.
> 
> 	1. For 10-15 X clients, 1 GB of ram is very minimal. 
> Depending on what applications are being run, you probably need more
> than that. How to find out: when all your clients are being used (really
> being used, not just logged in) run top and look at how much swap space
> is being used. If you are using a lot of swap that is an indication that
> you need more RAM. What window manager and applications are the clients
> running? Based on my past experience, you need at least 100 Mb of RAM
> for each client even when using a minimal window manager(icewm) and
> doing only internet browsing or word processing. This means that your
> server needs at least 1.5 GB of RAM and based in price points you would
> be better off going right up to 2 GB. Buying RAM in large chunks 
> costs less money, and if your client machines are doing anything 
> more than a minimal amount of work you will need more than 100MB per 
> machine.
> 
> You may have heard reports of people running 40-100 clients with 
> only 1 GB of RAM.  This works ONLY when the client machines are not running
> X-Windows (being used only as telnet/terminal appliances).
> 
> 1GB of RAM should be about (USD) $100 - $150
> 
> 	2.  CPU 1.6 GHz isn't real fast.  Evaluate the output of top or
> other load monitoring tools to see if you can benefit from a faster
> CPU.  A 3 GHz P4 runs about (USD) $300.
> 
> 	3.  Disk.  If you are hitting the disk for swap space definitely
> upgrade your RAM first. Then, if the applications are still making heavy
> use of the disk, you may want to upgrade to a disk with more cache
> and/or a faster transfer rate.  SCSI and SATA are both generally better
> than IDE, albeit more expen$ive.
> 
> 	4. (4 of 3 :)  Network architecture - make sure all clients are
> running at 100 Mbits and not 10 Mbits.  Make sure all switches or 
> hubs repeaters, and cards are running full duplex mode.  Make sure 
> all the cabling is clean with no reflections (reflections cause 
> collisions and retries).   Run ifconfig on each client and the 
> server to see if any of your machines are seeing collisions.
> 
> > The server shall serve about 10 – 15 thin client computers. The thin client 
> > computers are old computers with specifications running from Pentium 166 
> > MHz with 64 MB RAM and better.
> -- 
> Linux/Open Source:  Your infrastructure belongs to you, free,
>  forever. Idealism:  "Realism applied over a longer time period"
http://www.scaled.com/projects//
> http://kinz.org
> http://www.fedoratracker.org http://www.fedorafaq.org
> http://www.fedoranews.org
> Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.
> 
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Mark Raine
Computer Services Coordinator
Tisdale School Division #53
mark at tsd53.ca
306 873-2352  EXT: 505