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

Sat Sep 13 05:33:03 UTC 2008

On Friday 12 September 2008 22:20, Moon wrote:

> 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.

If it's an addition, then I'd agree wholeheartedly.  We're now seeing Via 
C7-based boxes with 1GB DRAM that would make excellent fanless diskless 
workstations, and Intel Atoms are on the way.  Corporations are now also 
trying to get rid of their 866MHz and 933MHz Pentium III's with 512MB DRAM 
and decent built-in video.  Perfect to run that Flash-enabled Firefox.

>
> 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.

If you have 25 kids using TuxMath simultaneously, with only one Gig-E NIC on 
your server, then that's why it's so slow.  Turns out you're way 
oversubscribing your server's network link, to the tune of about 175%.  Don't 
run more than 14 at a time, due to bandwidth consumption reasons.  If you 
must run all 25, then add a second Gig-E NIC in a Multi-Link configuration, 
which will let you safely run up to 28.

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

Done.

--TP