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

[Les Mikesell]

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

> I was working on some documentation on the workshop we are doing for 
> kids in a few weeks and got to wondering about what I can say to them 
> about Thin Clients and Diskless Workstations. The lab will include some 
> computers that are Diskless Workstations. The rest of the computers will 
> (mostly) be XP laptops (mostly) and some computers with Linux installed.
> 
> Do I have any thin clients?
> 
> What is the difference between a thin client and a diskless workstation?

"Thin client" normally means that the box on the desktop runs nothing
but an X server - that is, it only handles the display and keyboard
while the window manager or "desktop environment" along will all
applications run on a remote server.  This could also apply to a
citrix or RDP (windows terminal services) client. A "diskless
workstation" may be a thin client or it may mount remote disks and
load applications to run locally.  To make things even more confusing,
any machine might run a mix of local and remote applications, with or
without local disks, and it is also possible to run the X window
manager locally but some or all of the applications remotely.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    les at futuresource.com