[K12OSN] off the shelf PC as Server

[Edward Holcroft]

Ray Garza wrote:
> For a small lab of 6 to 10 PC's (with no plans to expand beyond 10 PC's), 
> would an off the shelf PC work as a Server?
>
> PC would have:
>
> - Intel Pentium D
> - 2 gig ram
> - 160 gig SATA hd
> - DVD/CDR combo
> - buil-in nic, video, sound
> - add additional NIC
> - install K12LTSP 5.0
>
>   
Ray

This will work perfectly. I use the configuration you suggest above for 
up to 20 clients, running K12LTSP 5, on a daily basis  with great 
success. I've done this in over 50 schools without a hitch and the 
performance on the clients is more than acceptable even when all 20 
clients are running open office and more. More recently I've started 
using a gigabit backbone which improves speed somewhat, but even the 
systems that are 100mb only, work well. The experience on the client 
side is only a little slower than working on a P4 fat client and this is 
mostly because of the old, slow video cards on the P1 clients with 64MB 
RAM (no swap - I find that this can slow things up).

Let me add that I use a vanilla K12LTSP install - no tweaking 
whatsoever. I leave tweaking up to individual teachers if they feel that 
way inclined.

cheers
ed