[K12OSN] OT: Apple Imac lab

[R. Scott Belford]

2009/3/3 Christian Einfeldt <einfeldt at gmail.com>:
>
> Based on my experience there, which is limited, as I am just the level one
> tech, I would say that it is going to be a nightmare for you to pull video
> across a network, even if it is an LDAP network with the apps running
> locally on the clients, let alone have the apps running on the server.  The
> server will take a huge hit.  Even with an LDAP setup, which sees only files
> (and not apps) running across the network, you are looking at big lag times
> and poor performance for those machines.
>
> There are plenty of decent video editing apps for Linux, but I wouldn't run
> any of them across a network of middle schoolers (we are a middle school).
>
> I would just try to dual boot the machines and run the video locally.

You, Christian, are far more than a "level-one" anything.  I think
that it is generally accepted that using new Mac hardware is a waste
if applied as a thin client.  Les said it best when suggesting that
freenx/nomachine be used for client services.  I was suggesting DRBL
in its default fat client mode.  This now seems sketchy with Mac
hardware and EFI, but it is proven with the pc platform.

I do not know enough about NFS and its capacity to move large files.
I cannot imagine that it can supersede a local drive.  However,
consider this scenario:

The 'netbook' that is used outside of class to capture video, is
etherbooted at school as a 'fat' client, and the data on its hard
drive is edited with the applications available in the classroom using
its local CPU.  Or, it is etherbooted at school as a thin client, but
the server has 32 cores, and only 3 students are rendering files.  If
the server is virtualized, then during the day perhaps this metal
provides LDAP/NFS, DRBL, LTSP, Proxying, etc., but, after hours this
same metal provides a rendering virtual server while the others
servers are shut down.

Below are pictures of a DRBL server powering a client.  Both are
'netbooks', and the shots show the boot menu, the login window, and a
shot of TOP, on both the client and server, displaying the CPU load on
the 'fat' client.  You also see a shot of a 16gb SD disk mounted on
the client, but not on the server.

http://links.hosef.org/drbllocalmode

http://links.hosef.org/topfatclient

http://links.hosef.org/drbllocalmedia

http://links.hosef.org/drblbooting

http://links.hosef.org/drbllogin

This last photo is of the DRBL 'netbook' server, the 'netbook' client,
and a 'netbook' running Ubuntu, with a windowed NX session connected
to a virtualized instance of Ubuntu that has authenticated from a
virtualized instance of a Centos4 NFS/LDAP/SAMBA server hosted on a
Centos5 Xen server.  The NX connection is wireless, runs across the
public internet to a school 25 miles from here, and it has sound.

http://links.hosef.org/3specialbooks

We don't have iMovie, but we can't do any of this with the Mac, yet.

--scott