[K12OSN] Life after LTSP

[Robert Arkiletian]

On Mon, Nov 8, 2010 at 12:27 PM, Robert Arkiletian <robark at gmail.com> wrote:
> In my opinion,  the days of LTSP are numbered. For a few different reasons.
>
> 1)
> hardware is so cheap now. You can buy a brand new power efficient and
> fast  desktop system for about $200 (not including monitor).  Thin

I meant to say *diskless* desktop system.

>
> 2)
> DRBL. This is the route I have taken. It's similar to ltsp boot
> process via pxe but ALL processes run locally. Only the filesystem is
> remote via nfs. There is no need for special plumbing for sound or
> local devices. Everything works like a stand alone system. Except the
> first time to launch (not run) apps is slightly longer since the
> binary needs to be downloaded into local ram from the network before
> it can be run. One user can't hog ram or cpu. Full class of full
> screen video and flash, no problem. I even have had an entire class of
> students simultaneously install and run Ubuntu in a Virtualbox VM on
> top of  the diskless client OS. Local apps with LTSP cannot do this.
> Although I do have dual gigabit nics for the lan and hardware raid 10
> for the server. Each client can have it's own nfs mounted /etc and
> /var so there can still be customization per client.

Plus you only need to manage the server, just like LTSP.

-- 
Robert Arkiletian
Eric Hamber Secondary, Vancouver, Canada