[K12OSN] Servers, K12LTSP, and workstation numbers, etc.

Tue Jul 25 18:05:54 UTC 2006

Already have these servers and will have to use them,. . .

the one I am wanting to boot from is a dual xeon 3G (I think) with12MB RAM 
and GB NICs.

Doug Simpson
Technology Specialist
DeQueen Public Schools
DeQueen, AR 71832
simpsond at leopards.k12.ar.us
Tux for President!

On Tue, 25 Jul 2006, Robert Arkiletian wrote:

> On 7/25/06, Doug Simpson <simpsond at leopards.k12.ar.us> wrote:
> >
> > 25 clients per server. . . we'd need about 40 servers. . .They'd never go
> > for that. . . I was hoping to be able to serve hundreds per server. . .
> 
> 
> 
> If you are going to have hundreds on at the same time running Firefox and
> OOo on 1 server (maybe the entire school):
> 
> 
> Go Opteron.
> A single 2.0 Ghz Opteron can handle about 25 clients. That's about 80 Mhz /
> client (BTW Xeons require about 100Mhz/client). If  you get a dual Opteron
> MB that supports dual-core cpu's you can put 4 cores it ( two Opteron 270's
> ) That should be able to support 100 clients simultaneously provided you
> have about 80mb ram / client and use Icewm. So you will need 8G ram. Make
> sure you have 15K rpm SCSI drives in Raid 1 or 5 with an LSI or 3ware
> controller (preferably with it's own cache) and of course a Gigabit NIC on
> eth0. The quad cpu motherboards and 800 series Opterons are *VERY*
> expensive.
> 
> 
> 
> Not a good deal, but. . .
> >
> > Doug Simpson
> > Technology Specialist
> > DeQueen Public Schools
> > DeQueen, AR 71832
> > simpsond at leopards.k12.ar.us
> > Tux for President!
> >
> > On Mon, 24 Jul 2006, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> >
> > > It really boils down to networking at the Enterprise model level. Tests
> > > have show that a 1Gb data line can support 25 clients.
> > >
> > > RAM is still king as each client will need 50-75 MB of RAM.
> > >
> > > We had about 56 clients hanging from a dual Opteron (single core) server
> > > w/4GB RAM and dual, bonded Gb NICs. The load level was getting heavy but
> > > OK until firefox got loaded. At that point, swap got hit and the box
> > > thrashed itself into oblivion. A hard reboot later (and turning OFF
> > > swap) and it _could_ run 56 clients but it was dragging.
> > >
> > > So for the "Bottom dollar" person: a single chip, dual core w/ 2GB RAM
> > > and 2 NICs (one Gb for clients, the other 100Mb for Internet) and a
> > > 120GB hard drive will serve 25+ clients very well. This a good model for
> > > an "app server".
> > >
> > > On Mon, 2006-07-24 at 10:15 -0500, Doug Simpson wrote:
> > > > Hello.
> > > >
> > > > I finally have got my Superintendent excited about being able to use
> > older
> > > > hardware to save monty and use K12LTSP for thos older computers to
> > make
> > > > them usable again in Internet/Research/Writing labs in our schools.
> > > >
> > > > I have several servers that have K12LTSP installed and ready to go,
> > > > thinking I could run many workstations from them.
> > > >
> > > > But when I read articles that say a district has 32 servers to deploy
> > > > K12LTSP, I am thninking I am missing something because where is the
> > cost
> > > > savings in that, forst of all, and that means server updates and
> > > > everything will have to be done on all those servers.
> > > >
> > > > Our Supt. is a "Bottom Dollar" kind of guy and he doesn't look at TCO
> > so
> > > > much as what it will cost to "get it in the door".
> > > >
> > > > Say I have a server with 12GB RAM, Almost a terabyte (sp?) of SCSI
> > hard
> > > > drive in Raid5 and Gigabit NICs.  Realistically, how many workstations
> > can
> > > > I hang off there using Gnome, Mozilla, OOo, and several other apps on
> > > > intermittent basis and see usable performance?
> > > >
> > > > Also, I have one server, running FC1 with K12LTSP and it serves DHCP
> > IP
> > > > addresses, but I want another server to handle the terminals.
> > > >
> > > > I added the next-server line to dhcpd.conf, but it still looks to the
> > FC1
> > > > server to boot from. The other (preferred server) is FC3, K12LTSP and
> > I
> > > > think it is set up correctly.
> > > >
> > > > What can I look for to make the workstations boot and run from the FC3
> > > > server with DHCP being handled by the FC1 server?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks!
> > > >
> > > > Doug Simpson
> > > > Technology Specialist
> > > > DeQueen Public Schools
> > > > DeQueen, AR 71832
> > > > simpsond at leopards.k12.ar.us
> > > > Tux for President!
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
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> > > > K12OSN at redhat.com
> > > > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
> > > > For more info see <http://www.k12os.org>
> > > --
> > > James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
> > > CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
> > > Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
> > > 770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
> > > http://www.localnetsolutions.com
> > >
> > > GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
> > > <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
> > > Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7
> > >
> >
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> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Robert Arkiletian
> Eric Hamber Secondary, Vancouver, Canada
> Fl_TeacherTool http://www3.telus.net/public/robark/Fl_TeacherTool/
> C++ GUI tutorial http://www3.telus.net/public/robark/
> 