[K12OSN] can I get some info on Thin Clients/ Diskless Workstations

[Gavin Chester]

On Wed, 2005-05-18 at 04:11 -0500, Gary Frederick wrote:

 -snip-

> What is the difference between a thin client and a diskless workstation?

(Since perhaps all the gurus have gone from the list at the moment
(various time differences in other parts of the world?) I will venture
to have a stab at this for you from info gleaned from my years of
lurking and learning on such topics.)  

The one-line answer is that. in essence, the definition "thin client"
and "diskless workstation" mean the same thing :-).  

However, one definition is clearly more explicit about the hardware
state of the client PC.  Perhaps for this reason it has been adopted
almost as a Trade Mark by the LTSP crew, chief maintainer being Jim
McQuillan (see the LTSP mailing list).  Jim frequents this list and adds
his pearls of wisdom here, too.  In fact, you'll find that he has been
involved in setting up a commercial hardware venture entitled
http://www.disklessworkstation.com/ 

It seems to have evolved that anything that is "fanless", low power
consumption, and in a purpose-built mini box is more likely to be called
a diskless workstation (see the above link for examples).  On the other
hand, a thin client is more typically a legacy PC (low-grade Pentium)
that has had its hard drive removed (and maybe floppy and CD) so that it
boots and runs only from the network.  

But, they are still the same thing in how they work.  On the other hand,
if you have any sort of PC or laptop that has a hard drive and is
capable of working independent of the network then it is often called a
"chubby" client when you use it to log onto a LTSP environment. 

HTH
-- 
Regards, 
        Gavin Chester