[Menai-LUG] Linux for community centre

[Kevin Donnelly]

On Wednesday 15 January 2003 6:40 pm, Jim Killock wrote:
> * Find a high powered server and use a number of old pentiums to use as
> thin clients
> * Find some old computers and run them as full desktops
>
> Either way, they could demo Mozilla / KDE or Gnome / OpenOffice / Gimp
> / Blender 3D animation tool / PFAEdit font creator/ Amaya W3C's Wysiwyg
> html editor
>
> Does anyone have any suggestions as to what hardware might be available?

Hi Jim

Torben was to ask again about the old PCs he mentioned.  If that doesn't work, 
there is another source of Pentiums at around £50 apiece - I don't know if 
your budget stretches to that, or if the guy has any more of them; I will 
ask.  Most of these would probably run Linux OK - it would be a bit slow, but 
perfectly useable (I have a couple of K6 2/450s that are fine for office 
apps).  Alternatively, you could try getting a more highly-powered machine as 
a server, and use those boxes as thin-clients, as you say.  LTSP 
(www.ltsp.org) is the place to be here.  I got their app running on SuSE 
about 18 months ago, and it worked fine.  As it happens, I have just got the 
"packaged" version of RedHat+LTSP from K12LTSP (www.k12ltsp.org) in the post 
today.  This is supposed to make setup of a terminal server system very easy.  
When I get some time I'm going to try it - if you want copies of the 3 disks, 
let me know.  I would in fact like to experiment with this setup (which 
doesn't rule out having a self-standing Linux on the boxes as well), because 
I think it might be quite an attractive proposition for offices and schools.

Best wishes

Kevin