I’ve been researching options for thin clients over the past few months and trying to get my Fit PCs to boot over LTSP / etherboot (still no joy so far). I do have them working as thin clients via XDMCP thought. Along the way I have found some handy websites which I thought I would make a note of here:
VM from GDM – This one explains how to set up a custom session type so that it logs you directly into a virtual machine instance from the Gnome Display Manager. So you get a full screened windows or whatever session with no Gnome running in the background.
Thin Client Howto – This one is a slightly out of date but still useful run through on how to get clients booting via etherboot.
disklessworkstations.com – This is a commercial vendor of tin client workstations, some of which support dual screen which is useful for GIS workers and software developers. I havent purchased any of their products & would love to hear from those who have.
Ubuntu LTSP quick install guide – contains a useful hint when setting up a 64bit server with 32 bit clients (sudo ltsp-build-client –arch i386 )
This guide has a few handy nuggets like reminding you that every time you update the server you should rerun
ltsp-update-kernels ltsp-update-image ltsp-update-sshkeys
One other thing to note is that I believe LTSP is now bundled with the Ubuntu alternate CD so I’m thinking I might do a complete system re-install when 9.10 comes out.
I really want to get this LTSP stuff working nicely – I think its an enviromentally responsible way to go (my FIT-PC’s only consume around 7 Watts of electricity) and makes a lot of sense in terms of configuring and securing one server and all your clients automatically benifiting from a single admin action.
spatialguru
Hi Tim, I’m also keenly interested in your progress here on this topic and will look at your links. I have several different platforms to test with and am wondering about next steps. Is it just me or is LTSP documentation not so great? Either that or my attention span is pathetically degrading
admin
I actually followed another tut when setting things up which was pretty straightforward, though I wasnt able to find the link again when I wrote the post. By the looks of things the path of least resistance is to install your server form the alternate CD and enable LTSP at install time.
I’m actually pretty sure my setup is 99% there and I’m doing something dumb for the last 1% but google doesnt seem to want to bail me out like it normally does
I will keep pursuing it though since I have this vision of creating a lab in a (big) box and pitching up at a site with a trolly with 6 or 8 thin clients, screens, keyboards and 1 serverish box and training kids, university students, FOSSGIS converts etc. I have the thin clients working pretty nicely over xdmcp but I was hoping for the classroom aid stuff that LTSP promises like being able to see all the active sessions on a control screen, screen sharing, taking over screens remotely etc.