[Sussex] LINUX on Mini-ITX / Via?

Fri Jan 10 10:36:04 UTC 2003

> Hi
>
> I have been looking at the thin client model for a while, and the price
> is slightly cheap for x86 thin clients the x86 pc's but not by much, as
> if you go for the small look (which I would as the look so much better)
> u pay a bit more for everything to be shrunk.
>
> However, that said I would go for the client server model where I can,
> as it allows for easier administration and control, especially when
> updating packages and security.

Have you given VNC a thought?

You could use any of the GUI environments to display the viewer (Windows,
Mac, Unix), and the applications run on the VNC server in an X session, so
you can use distributed computing to balance the load of people using
staroffice etc.

Perhaps there are better ways of doing this than VNC, but its free and
open source. http://www.realvnc.com or http://www.tightvnc.com for the
more feature laden version with better compression.

> Also look at going wireless with it. I have tried it and it works well.
> If all people are doing low intensity stuff like open office bits then
> they dont need the faster networks.
>
> Mark
>
>
> On Fri, 2003-01-10 at 09:29, Steve Dobson wrote:
>> Hi
>>
>> On 10 January 2003 at 08:50 Geoff Teale wrote:
>> > Neil "smudgey pixels" Ford wrote:
>> > > I have to say I like the look of the Linitx box with 3 NICs and
>> IPCop  on Compact Flash as a nice neat firewall solution. No
>> moving parts  except the fans.
>> >
>> > Yup.. fom parts its perfectly possible to build these things without
>> the fans.  I like the idea of diskless nodes booting from Compact
>> Flash.
>> Netbox
>> > advocate this for office desktops - they recommend using LINUX the
>> old fashioned way (One _fat_ sever and a bunch of cheap, diskless
>> nodes
>> running
>> > XServer as clients) - they try and sell this idea on their website
>> http://www.netbox.co.uk/netbox/html/networking.htm .  I think it's
>> something
>> > people should push more - why go for an expensive full PC on every
>> desk option when you can play to UNIX/LINUX's strengths instead?
>>
>> I use to agree with you, but having working here for a while with a
>> Web server
>> based GUI I don't any more.  My major complaint is performance, or the
>> lack there
>> of.  If to many clients are connected the server can run slow, either
>> because
>> the CPUs are overloaded, or because of a bottleneck of a particular
>> resource (disk,
>> network, ...).  The other problem is a single point of failure (or
>> even more expensive hard-/soft-ware for fail-over).
>>
>> Don't get me wrong, I do like the client/server model, but it needs to
>> be applied
>> with full knowledge of it's use; and the server needs enough resources
>> to provide
>> a reasonable response to the user.  I think this model works well for
>> applications
>> but not for personal computing resource.
>>
>> > They certainly would make a stylish alternative to something like
>> Suns SunRay1, 100 & 150 thin clients - the only problem being that
>> Netboxen are rather pricey (though they are stylish and well built).
>>  That said the
>> price
>> > of the sun thin client boxes seems to have risen recently (Steve?).
>>
>> I can't say that I am currently tracking the prices of Sun kit (or any
>> other hardware for that matter).  But price is another issue here.
>> What's the delta
>> between the thin client and a full x86 PC these days?  Give the volume
>> of x86
>> systems and the discounts companies buying large number get I would
>> suggest that the x86 system is cheaper.
>>
>> The problem that need to be solved here is the administration one.  It
>> is far,
>> far easier (and cheaper) to admin on central server, and this cost
>> saving  may (I only say may) make the thin client a cheaper solution.
>> But if we could
>> find a way to centrally admin a number of remote systems then we could
>> have the
>> best of both worlds:
>>
>>   1). an easy to admin central pool of system, and
>>
>>   2). the power of a full system on my desk dedicated to doing my
>> work.
>>
>> As you mentioned Sun, I remember they came up with a system a few
>> years back
>>
>> called cashefs.  A central file server hosted the "disks" of the
>> remote clients.
>> Each client had a disk, but it was just a cache for the centralised
>> data store.
>> The performance figures I saw showed almost the same performance as a
>> stand-alone
>> system, and was significantly faster than "standard" diskless nodes.
>>
>> What also impressed me about that set-up is that an older and slower
>> system (SPARC 5) could support up to 10-15 faster systems (SPARC 20s).
>>
>> I have of course ignored in this my biggest bug bare in these
>> centralised  set-ups.  As a developers I sometimes need more control
>> over my box than the standard plebe user.  But then I know that I (we
>> developers and SysAdmins on this list) are different and have special
>> needs ;-)
>>
>> Steve
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sussex mailing list
>> Sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk
>> http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/sussex
> --
>
> Mark Olliver
> mark at olliver.me.uk
> +44 7881 910782
>
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> --
>
> Mark Olliver
>
> Thermeon Europe Ltd
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> Russ Hill
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-- 
FyreMoon
Under the moon, the chaos dragon flies.