[K12OSN] 64 bit ltsp vs. virtualization

[James P. Kinney III]

On Mon, 2008-06-23 at 07:49 -0700, Luis Montes wrote:
> I'm placing an order today for a new server. The school I'm using it at 
> has about 75 thin clients.
> Currently we're using an smbldap serer and two dual-core 4GB ram servers.
> 
> I'm gonna spend 5 or 6 K today on a 64bit 8-core 16GB ram monster. (well 
> monster compared to what I have right now)

Sounds like a name-brand Dell, HP, etc. Overpriced to buy and overpriced
to maintain.
> 
> Now I'd like to just add this new box to the network as another ltsp 
> server using 64 bit edubuntu or fedora+ltsp, but so far my couple of 
> months with a 64 bit desktop have me thinking this might not be the best 
> approach.
> 
> The main problem I have is that Adobe's has yet to get off their butts 
> and product a 64bit flash plugin. I know I can use the nspluginwrapper 
> but it only seems to work about half the time, and when it does work, 
> half the time sound doesn't.  I imagine that sound through the thin 
> clients will be even more troublesome.

The solution to the flash problem is to use the 32-bit firefox and
associated components for multimedia. Then the flash player works just
fine. You will need to get the 32-bit version of xine, mplayerplug-in
and the associated requirements all in 32-bit. Happily, the 32-bit stuff
plays very nicely in a 64-bit sandbox!

You will need to tinker and make pulseaudio run on the server so that
flash will be happy. 
> 
> The other option I have is to load centos5.1 or ubuntu 8.04 on the new 
> server and something like vmware server to slice it up with 4 or so 
> 32bit guests.

Load up K12LTSP-EL v. 5.1 (Centos based) and use the 64-bit version so
you can use directly the full 16GB RAM. Don't bother with the vmware
slices as it won't get you anything of benefit. 
> 
> That second option seems like a waste of resources, but it may give me 
> less headaches.
> 
> Surely there are other ltsp users in the same boat right now?
> Thoughts?
> 
> Thanks,
> Luis
> 
> 
> 
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> 
-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC                           
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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