[K12OSN] Server specs....how low can you go?

[Carl Keil]

Hi,

I wanted to take a second to reply to this, since it's one of the few things related to k12ltsp that I'm at all qualified in.  Right now I'm rockin' 3 thin clients on my home network.  It's 100BaseT cabling.  3 assorted clients.  An Amer T500, an old Gateway E-1000 and an Oracle NIC.  

Anyway, the server is a Dell 400SC that I got new on ebay for about $350.  I've got 2 Sata drives in it one for /home and one for everything else and I upped the RAM from 512 to a Gig.  I think the CPU is 2.23 GHz. or thereabouts.  Upping the RAM made a huge difference in performance.  I personally think that the SATA drives are probably unnecessary at this level too.  I'm probably going to get a gig uplink Switch when I add another client or two.  

I find performance for the very apps you mention to be excellent.  Many people use the terminals without knowing or caring that they are thin.  No complaints, or even comments.

Like this, only at 2.23 I can't hyperthread the processor.  I'm not sure that would make much difference anyway.  
http://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-New-Dell-PowerEdge-400SC_W0QQitemZ110005762254QQihZ001QQcategoryZ51140QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

HTH

ck






From: "Jason Neiffer" <neiffer at gmail.com>
Subject: [K12OSN] Server specs....how low can you go?
To: K12OSN at redhat.com
Message-ID:
	<993ff5300607100822q6a0bba0doce1ec219d11a8335 at mail.gmail.com>
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I am working with a small business who is looking for 2-3 workstations to
surf the Internet on a broadband connection they have going into their
shop.  They were going to go purchase a coulpe of low-end Dells but I
suggested they look into LTSP.

I am fairly sure I can come up with cheap thin clients but I want to get as
inexpensive of a server as possible.  How low can I go on the specs?  I was
looking at http://k12ltsp.org/install.html and it suggested that I could get
away with something as low as a PIII/1gig or faster.  Would that be a
workable solution in this environment?  How about if I wanted to use K12LTSP
5 when it was released?

Does anybody have experience with using it with just a few computers that
could share?

Thanks,
Jason