[K12OSN] Poor performance woes

Jomegat jomegat at jomegat.com
Tue Sep 20 23:00:06 UTC 2011


On 09/20/2011 06:13 PM, Jeff Siddall wrote:
> Unfortunately there are some cases where LTSP just doesn't work well.
> Sounds like you hit one of those where javascript is doing something
> silly with the display and sending raw display updates across the LAN is
> killing things.

Yes.  I think I'm falling victim to bad programming here.

> 2. Fire up one of those clients as a Windoze machine and load a flash
> page to show that Windows on your clients is a non-option.

I think I need to do that pretty soon.  Anyone know what I have to do to 
my server to make it forward network access?  That way I wouldn't have 
to move any cables.

> 3. Try installing more RAM in one client and see if it works any better
> on the problem page. That should confirm/deny the running out of RAM
> question. Also, that will allow you to try installing flash in the
> chroot and see if the performance is acceptable. Maybe you can add some
> RAM to your clients and successfully run them all with localapp browsers.

I'll see if I can scare up some RAM.

> 4. If they are going to upgrade the PCs anyway, try to convince them to
> order them diskless initially and run either LTSP with localapps or
> something like DRBL. If nothing else they save admin time/effort vs. any
> Windows option plus the cost of all the hard drives and Windoze licenses
> in the clients. They can still add drives and Windoze after if it
> doesn't work.

That sounds like a good plan.  The other thing they must understand is 
that they will lose a free sysadmin.  I would not run a Windows network 
for money, much less for free.  As a result, I have next to no Windows 
admin skills.  My fear is that with grade-school aged kids surfing the 
web on a Windows machine, the network will be chock-full-o-malware in 
under a month.  Then they get to hire someone to do janitorial work at 
an hourly rate.

I ran a K12LTSP network for four years when I lived in Virginia, and of 
course, we were malware-free that whole time.  This is our fourth year 
of LTSP at this school, and still no malware on my watch.  The problem 
is going to be getting them to recognize that.

-- 
Jim Thomas            jomegat at jomegat.com
  "And" is a word that should never be used at the beginning of a sentence.




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