[K12OSN] A New direction for LTSP: Diskless Remote Boot

[Rita Gibson]

Robert Arkiletian wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 9:29 PM, Terrell Prude' Jr.
> <microman at cmosnetworks.com> wrote:
>   
>> +1 on that.  The demos that I do are for overseas US State Dept. schools that,
>> to my utter surprise, don't have a big budget, despite the fact that they're
>> the schools where diplomats' kids go.  Go figure.
>>
>> I've had two such schools convert to K12LTSP precisely because they could
>> reuse existing hardware.  They're typically using Pentium II-450 boxes as
>> EtherBooting LTSP thin clients (boxes of that vintage often don't support
>> PXE).
>>     
>
> All of you make good points. As I replied earlier, I am not suggesting
> that we remove any functionality but rather see if we can *add* an
> option to k12linux where we can boot in diskless workstation mode
> based on mac address.
>
> That way you don't have to choose one or the other for an entire lab.
> If you had some newer machines, you could specify by mac which ones
> would work as regular ltsp and which by diskless workstation mode.
>   
I have to say that we would absolutely find a diskless workstation mode 
useful. I have been wanting to respond to this thread all week, but have 
hesitated.

I live in a city that has a very robust school donation program from 
which we can get nearly new machines from very high tech companies. I 
can think of a few apps that totally bog down our lab (25 clients) when 
everyone uses the same app -- tuxmath for one. If we could use a 
diskless workstation mode when using these types of applications, it 
would be awesome.

Robert, maybe you should change the subject line to A New Addition to 
LTSP; Diskless Remote Boot instead of A New Direction.

Rita Gibson
RMSELTech