Thin Clients

[Warren Togami]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dusty" <dusty at sandust.com>
To: "Linux & Unix Advocates & Users" <luau at list.luau.hi.net>
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 9:34 PM
Subject: [luau] Re: yo Re: LUG?


> Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you.  I am all for getting the word out and

No real offense was taken.  See my other post.

> I was just thinking it would be nice to get together and have a beer (or
atleast
>overdose on some caffine), some pizza and talk about some of the cool stuff
>we do and can do with *nix!
>

Yeah, that'll be cool.  I don't get to talk to *nix people too often, other
than Ray at school.

> Talking about thin clients would be cool, but I don't know that I would go
into
>any detail about XDMCP (X Display Manager Control Protocol) which is
>basically the protocol that allows to display an X window on a remote X
>windows system and should be turned off unless you actually use it,
>because it can be exploited to display your windows on a hackers system.

I'm aware of the security problems in XDMCP.  The other option that I'm
aware
of is VNC, which has slightly more security, but some of its own inherent
problems.
I plan on showing both methods of thin clients, including ways of mitigating
security
and performance concerns on both sides.

>
> Anyway I am very interested in thin clients.  I don't have enough
experience with
>them but if they have anywhere near the performance I think they should,
they
>should be the standard desktop for business!  The biggest problem companies
>have is trying to control desktops.  With windows based systems users can
>install software change things on their desktop adn in general screw the
box
>up.

http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/xterminals/
http://www.ltsp.org/index.php
Convenient XDMCP based thin client kits.  There are tons of folks using this
and
saving A LOT of money.  An entire school district in California is using
hundreds of
thin clients and saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in hardware and
software costs.

Thin client performance is actually surprisingly good when you configure
your server
a certain way.  The main requirement is RAM to handle many applications open
at once.
You can build yourself dual P3 1GHz, 1GB ECC PC133 CL2 SDRAM, IDE RAID-5
array for well under $2,000.  Plenty of power.

Thin clients are best used in schools or certain business platforms.  School
computer
labs used mainly for web browsing and office applications are ideal for thin
clients.  While
multimedia over virtual remote sound devices is possible, it is not
recommended.  Thankfully
though, that same virtual remote device system can be used to transparently
mount
local (client) floppy and CD-ROM devices.  Very convenient.

>Then they complain that it is going to take some time to ghost them a
>new hard drive and someone is going to get fired if you tell them they
>might lose that latest screen saver they downloaded.

I suggested that to the tech staff of my high school since 8th grade, but
they still didn't learn.
To this day they still rebuild every machine manually... and they complain
of being overworked
and understaffed.  (Not to mention underqualified...)