[K12OSN] Plans for K12Linux EL6 and Future Fedora
Jeff Siddall
news at siddall.name
Mon May 9 14:19:36 UTC 2011
On 05/08/2011 08:50 AM, Warren Togami Jr. wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> It has been a LONG while since I've been able to look at k12linux.org,
> but I haven't forgotten about this project. 2007 through 2009 Red Hat
> generously supported my time to work on this project. In 2010 I've
> since left Red Hat in order to help my parents with the family business
> and prepare for grad school.
>
> K12Linux LTSP EL6
> =================
> I soon plan on working on a version of LTSP based on EL6.
Thanks Warren, I am eagerly awaiting this as a long term migration
platform for my current K12Linux systems.
> BIGGEST PROBLEM: 32bit EL6 supports a minimum of i686 and they have
> excluded certain kernel modules required by LTSP like nbd.ko. For this
> reason, we may need clients of EL6 to boot images based on Fedora
> 12/13?/14? that still have userspace capable of running on i586. I
> would need to see what are the supported archs and kernels in those
> versions of Fedora.
Personally I don't care about this really. Even the lowly Atom is i686
and as I have argued on this list before the business case for re-using
old fat desktop hardware doesn't exist if you consider the cost of
power. I am far more concerned with the easy manageability LTSP provides.
> The LTSP based on EL6 would likely be the LAST version of LTSP for a
> RH-derived distribution. Given the LONG lifespan of EL6 this should
> give the considerable numbers of existing LTSP deployments many years of
> life. However, since the only maintainable way we can build the client
> images for EL6 is from a particular old Fedora version, this effectively
> means that K12Linux LTSP EL6 will be frozen forever in client hardware
> support.
I am happy with the prospect of 7 more years of LTSP. I certainly hope
that 7 years from now we have a better solution!
> Next Generation of K12Linux: Desktop Virtualization
> ===================================================
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_virtualization
> I have been thinking about a theoretical next generation technology
> replacement for LTSP. Fedora contains the remote desktop protocol SPICE
> and kvm, the Open Source core components of a VDI solution.
I already added a GSoC request for someone to implement just that. I
think this would be a great LTSP replacement.
> I suspect that SPICE will never support compositing. So a VDI-based
> Fedora 15+ would be using the non-compositing fallback (which I've only
> heard about but never tried). At least it wont rely on the almost
> untested remote X functionality.
I agree with all this although I can't imagine SPICE going far without
compositing. We already have that in legacy remote X!
> Youtube sucks much less over the SPICE protocol than with remote X of
> LTSP. Modern expectations of stuff like video are another nail in the
> coffin for the old LTSP model.
Honestly this is my biggest problem with LTSP right now. Video in LTSP
just plain sucks.
I for one think LTSP5 on CentOS 6 (or equiv.) would be a great solution
for the foreseeable future and am really hoping you find the
time/encouragement to do it.
Jeff
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