[K12OSN] Edubuntu - K12LTSP

[Jim McQuillan]

On Fri, June 23, 2006 12:53 pm, Andy Rabagliati wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Jun 2006, Simon Faulkner wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> I understand that the latest Edubuntu has k12LTSP built in?
>>
>> How do you do it?
>>
>> With the Fedora version you select K12LTSP during build then jut plug a
>> terminal into the second network card and it works - how simple!
>>
>> I there a howto for K12LTSP on Edubuntu 6.06?   I have surfed and read a
>> lot but none seem to show me...
>
> K12LTSP has an entire separate environment for the client, a quiet
> backwater of operating system with waves made only by new X servers.
>
> Edubuntu creates the client environment from the mainstream kernel,
> drivers and glibc, at install time. It can take a while.
>
> This makes it less stable, but has the huge advantage that apt and dpkg
> work there, so you can install local apps, for instance. (There is a lot
> more to getting local apps to work - ssh tunnels and things).

I'll disagree about using mainstream binaries causing Ubuntu's LTSP to be
less stable.  In fact, it *should* be more stable.  The only thing holding
it back is the maturity of the glue holding it all together.  We've been
doing legacy LTSP for a long time, and we've refined it pretty well.  On
top of that, Eric has done a remarkable job packaging things up.  The
Ubuntu developers are definately coming up to speed quickly on how thin
client support should be integrated into a distro, and from what we saw
this week at the Ubuntu developer summit in Paris, the next release of
Ubuntu (Edgy) which is due out in late october, looks to be the one we've
all been waiting for, in terms of thin client support from a mainstream
linux vendor.


>
> The advantage from Canonical's perspective is that there is only one
> kernel to maintain.

Interesting to note that we talked about Ubuntu supplying a trimmed down
kernel for their LTSP implementation.  My opinion is that the kernel is so
modular, that you wouldn't realize any gain by stripping it down.

>
> And it all fits on one CD.
>
> I think that if you are an experienced administrator, you can use their
> server environment (gdm set up correctly, font server tweaks) and if you
> don't like their client, install the LTSP one.

Using Ubuntu's LTSP without their LDM login manager is really quite
simple.  Edit the lts.conf file (You might have to create it, as it
doesn't exist by default in Ubuntu).  add this:

[Default]
  SCREEN_01 = startx

Then, edit the /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/inittab file and comment out the getty
starting on tty1.  I've heard reports that the performance is MUCH better
by doing this.  Using the LDM causes the traffic to all be encrypted over
ssh, which increases security, but unfortunately, has a huge negative
impact on performance.

>
> That is what I do - mainly because only LTSP4.2 has local devices.  Yaay.

The Edgy release of Ubuntu will have the same wonderful local device
support that is in LTSP-4.2  Yaaaaaaaay !

Jim McQuillan
jam at Ltsp.org