[Bug 1087] New: swap on thin clients (LTSP) should be turned on as default

[bugzilla-skolelinux@developer.skolelinux.no]

http://bugs.skolelinux.no/show_bug.cgi?id=1087

           Summary: swap on thin clients (LTSP) should be turned on as
                    default
           Product: Skolelinux
           Version: sarge-release-2.0r0
          Platform: Other
        OS/Version: other
            Status: NEW
          Severity: critical
          Priority: P2
         Component: Installation system
        AssignedTo: debian-edu@lists.debian.org
        ReportedBy: knuty@skolelinux.no


A lot of schools that has upgraded from Skolelinux 1.0 to 
Skolelinux/DebianEdu 2.0 and lost the support for thin clients on many  
of their machines. This is on reused machines from 1996 with 32 MB RAM.  
In the Municipality of Nittedal we talk about > 200 machines. The reason  
for this is the disabling of swap in the new LTSP solution that comes 
with Skolelinux/DebianEdu 2.0. In Skolelinux 1.0 the default was swap 
on the thin clients over the network file system. 
 
Some have suggested to upgrade the hardware to use 64 MB RAM. But for 
Nittedal it's not an option to use 38.000 EURO extra baying 250 reused 
PC's that replaces the machines that has 32 MB RAM. The Municipality 
in Nittedal don't have the manpower to put in extra RAM. The persons 
that maintain the machines at schools just have 1-2 hours a week to do 
technical support on 50-100 clients. Because of the scarce resources 
the "swap not turned on" problem gives really bad publicity for 
DebianEdu when the schools "loses" a lot of clients. 
 
There are three different solutions to handle the "swap not turned on" 
problem, but just one that takes into account that Skolelinux 2.0 
uses the next ltsp-solution (beta of version 5.0). 
 
1. Downgrade to the LTSP to 4.1 or 4.2 with the SWAP over NFS solution 
   (To use Skolelinux 2.0 pr05 could be a solution) 
 
2. Replace the LTSP beta 5.0 and use Lessdisks 
 
3. Turn on the Network Block Device (NBD) in the configuration on LTSP 
   5.0. 
 
http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/SwapNbd#Configuring_Swap_over_NBD_in_LTS 
 
When it comes to diskless workstations schools has experienced the 
application freezes the whole desktop. e.g by using the spell-checker 
that underlines misspelled words with a reed line. The problem 
evaporates when turning swap on the diskless workstations. So also the 
diskless workstations should have the swap turned on as default. 
 
It's also important that the maintenance person at every schools don't 
get any trouble or hassle when configuring swap. It should work out of 
the box.



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