[K12OSN] New Building's LTSP Server -- NEW WRINKLE

[Joseph Bishay]

Good day,

Thanks for the fixed link.

I certainly will load up the RAM as much as I can in the machines as I
test them.  With respect to the network cards, I am lucky as these
donated machines came with dual NICs on the motherboard plus a PCI-E
Intel Dual-NIC card so 4 gigabit NICs total on each.

I will spend some time doing some tests to determine how many clients
these machines can handle, etc.  I wonder is there a benchmark tool I
can use to give me a way to compare the different machines'
capability?  I didn't want to run around logging into the different
thin clients and running all the different applications (hmm..maybe I
should start a new thread about benchmarking?).

Thanks!
Joseph

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 9:43 AM, Terrell Prude' Jr.
<microman at cmosnetworks.com> wrote:
> +1 to Jim's advice.  Unfortunately, the link to the
> LTSP_Pilot_for_Atlanta_Public_Schools doesn't seem to work too well in my
> mail client (Thunderbird 2.0.0.24-CentOS).  Here's the full URL.  It may get
> wrapped, because it's long.
>
> http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ltsp/index.php?title=Ltsp_SuccessStories#Local_Net_Solutions_installs_7_school_LTSP_pilot_for_Atlanta_Public_Schools
>
> Note that in this project, in addition to lots of DRAM, Jim used a 4 or 6
> (not sure which) GB network pipe to the thin clients.  He also had four full
> cores at 2.6GHz, and they were Opterons, which are not exactly slow in the
> first place.
>
> --TP
>
> Jim Kinney wrote:
>
> More hardware is (almost) ALWAYS a good thing!!
>
> When I did the APS 7 school project, a single Proliant DL385 G1 was used for
> 100 clients. two dual core Opteron and 8 GB RAM per application server plus
> a separate RAID5 SAS drive system for /home. See here for some specs:
> Ltsp_SuccessStories#Local_Net_Solutions_installs_7_school_LTSP_pilot_for_Atlanta_Public_Schools
>
> The only issues we really hit was flash eating up all resources (as flash is
> so good at doing) when 3-4 classrooms would all hit the same web pages with
> a zillion flash blinkies all over. Streaming flash video was a nightmare.
> This was before local apps were developed.
>
> You don't specify RAM for the newly donated machines so I can't offer advice
> on specific designs. But you appear to have a powerful enough stack of
> servers in the donated batch to be quite successful. I do suggest to disable
> hyperthreading in the bios on those Xeons as cache thrashing becomes an
> issue under any load.
>
> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 12:28 AM, Joseph Bishay <joseph.bishay at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> I hope you are all doing well and had an enjoyable long weekend.
>>
>> A few weeks back I received some excellent advice with regards to
>> setting up a new LTSP network in our new elementary school building.
>> I had already sourced out the parts and was just about to order them
>> when a donation arrived at my door!  I received 5 servers with the
>> following specifications:
>>
>> 1) One Proliant DL580 G3 4U rackmount server (2 Dual-Xeon (4 threads
>> total) running at 3 Ghz.
>> 2) FOUR Super p4DP8-G2 2U rackmount servers (Each has 2 Dual-core Xeon
>> (4 threads total) running at 2.40 Ghz, 512 KB cache, 4 GB RAM (max is
>> 64 GB) with Adaptec 2010s RAID controller and hot-swappable drives.
>>
>> So I wanted to mention these machines to see if I can utilize them for
>> our LTSP network if possible, or should I stick with my original plan
>> which was using another machine that we have:
>>
>> Intel i5 with 12 GB RAM, PCI-E SSD boot drive, Raid 1 SATA drives for
>> /home
>>
>> Granted the newly donated machines are all server-grade, with
>> redundant power supplies, etc as compared to the i5 which is a custom
>> desktop build.
>>
>> We need to power about 65 thin clients in the new building -- and for
>> many in the building this will be the first foray into Linux (which
>> they are nervous about) so I want the setup to wow them.
>>
>> Thanks very much!
>>
>> Joseph
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> --
> James P. Kinney III
>
> As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to
> consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they
> please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.
> - 2011 Noam Chomsky
>
> http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
>
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