I want to set up a thin client for the school with educational softwares on it. We have a PC with 2.8 Ghz, 4gb ram which we are using as the server and we are using edubuntu 9.04 on it.so the server configuration is already done. We have about 15 Pentium-III pc’s with 256- 512 mb ram which we intend to use as the client. Only few of the client pc’s have pxe support for their Lan card. And I am finding it difficult to get the lan card which supports pxe.All my client machines have HDD from 20-40 GB.The internet speed in our area is 1-3 kbps, and ubuntu requires you to download any desired package from their repository. Also many of the graphical application gets hung on the client terminal(I suppose because of heavy graphics), even with only 2-3 client connected to the server.
So I thinking of shifting to open suse which will have most of the application in the installation DVD itself.
I want to know all the possible solution with the given resources.
Is there a way to boot from the client PC HDD to get the image from the server? I tried the ethernet boot by downloading for booting through CD, it didn’t work(or maybe i made a mistake) .Can I do it with just Grub bootloader or can I use a lesser version of linux on client for network booting which can also be used as desktop too.
Any other solution is welcome.
Thanks in advance.
Royce
edubuntu has got LTSP in it and we are using it already, we need a solution to boot to the server through the client which does not have lan with pxe support.
On 2011-11-10 07:36, enquiry4royce wrote:
>
> edubuntu has got LTSP in it and we are using it already, we need a
> solution to boot to the server through the client which does not have
> lan with pxe support.
I saw some people doing it via floppy bootup (no hardisk available)
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 11.4 x86_64 “Celadon” at Telcontar)
Alternatively, type in ‘opensuse education’ and you get openSUSE:Education-Li-f-e - openSUSE - if I have understood the information correctly, it appears that your problem may be that LTSP only supports five terminals; if you had two more servers, you would have no problems with the 15. Perhaps you may need to look at a combination of LTSP and PXE.
You can install it from SystemRescueCD or use rawwrite to copy it to the bootloader of your hard drive.
You can also make CDs or bootable floppies.
Another method is to add temporarily a bootable NIC, create a session and from the server install the bootloader to the hard drive. Some BIOS will allow the bootable NICs BIOS to extend the BIOS so this can work. Once you have the bootloader installed you are laughing.
LTSP works but there are other choices too, like DRBL. You can also do a minimal installation of GNU/Linux on the hard drive and have the Xserver connect to your terminal server when it starts up: X -query ipofserver added /etc/rc.local can do it. The minimal installation needs only Linux, the GNU utilities and the Xserver more or less, a few hundred MB. I use Debian and clear all the defaults and then add the Xserver for my machines. Fedora may have similar options.