(forw) Re: skolelinux+DRBL / steven+jazz to FOSDEM+Chemnitz in 2008?
dear skoletuxe, just for your information
----- Forwarded message from Steven Shiau <steven@nchc.org.tw> -----
From: Steven Shiau <steven@nchc.org.tw>
Subject: Re: skolelinux+DRBL / steven+jazz to FOSDEM+Chemnitz in 2008?
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 20:59:54 +0800
User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.12 (X11/20070604)
To: Sven Guckes <guckes@guckes.net>
Cc: Kurt Gramlich <kurt@skolelinux.de>,
Yao-Tsung Wang <jazzwang.tw@gmail.com>,
Odile Benassy <odile@ofset.org>
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Hello everybody,
Sven Guckes wrote:
> Hello, again!
>
> * Steven Shiau <steven@nchc.org.tw> [2007-07-20 13:58]:
>>> [new]
>>> see links appended in a copy of Odile's text in her blog.
>>> http://blog.ofset.org/odile/index.php?post/2007/07/18/Clonezilla
>> Actually I think Clonezilla might not be a good solution for thin
>> client environment. Since it is aimed at powerful/fat clients.
>> It clones all the system image into the fat client
>> and run everything by using local hardware.
>
> ok... good point!
>
>> One the other hand, DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot in Linux,
>> http://drbl.sf.net) might be used in "modern" thin client.
>> What I mean "modern" thin client is something like this: URL
>> VIA C7 1.0Ghz processor, 256 MB or 512 MB RAM. or (URL)
>> VIA Eden Esther 1.2GHz (Fanless) 512MB DDR2 onboard
>
> 1.0Ghz... my fastest machine has that power.
> and it still feels like a 400Mhz machine. :-/
>
> Kurt - has skolelinux considered DRBL yet?
>
> *google* aha! apparently someone has thought about it:
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-edu/2007/07/msg00140.html
Good! Apparently people need both solutions. I think what Knut mentioned
in that mailing list is a good point! Therefore maybe LTSP can play more
roles in an environment when thin and fat clients coexist.
DRBL is definitely LowFat Clients (Diskless Workstations). The reason we
started DRBL in 2002 is because LTSP did not meet the requirement in
high-performance computing or cluster computing then. Therefore we
started to develop DRBL for cluster computing. Then we happened to find
that in the computer classroom, people need similar solution. That's
all. Therefore we only focus on powerful/fat client.
>
>> Those machines are although named as "thin client", but
>> actually it's powerful enough to run as a powerful GNU/Linux
>> client. As I mentioned to Sven the other days, we helped to
>> setup a demo diskless client classroom in Philippine, which
>> consists of 14 Gigabyte TA7 clients and 1 DRBL server. This
>> server is 1 GB memory, 3.0 GHz P4 CPU, a white box machine.
>
> a "white box"? hmm... *google* wikipedia has the answer! :-)
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_box :
> * White box (software engineering), a subsystem whose internals can be viewed
> * White box testing, a specification conformance test
> * White box (computer hardware), a personal computer assembled from off-the-shelf parts
I mean this one, a personal computer assembled from off-the-shelf parts.
> * White Box Enterprise Linux, a Linux distribution similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux
> * "White Box", the title of a special episode of the British comedy Absolutely Fabulous
> * White Box White Box Organization, a non-profit arts organization in New York
>
> interesting.
>
> also interesting: http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/
>
>> All the programs run locally in those clients, so students
>> can use those thin clients to run multimedia programs,
>> such as vlc to listen to music and play movies.
>
> listen to music? play movies? *gasp*
> arent students supposed to *study*? ;-)
Ha... that's true. But everybody likes to use the computer in the same
way they do at home. A full functional computer, not only they can
listen to music or some speech, but also sometimes they need to play
some videos to learn something. :)
>
>> However, as I know, LTSP is built-in skolelinux, and
>> I am not sure how deeply it is involved with the system
>> programs. If it's highly coupled, I think it's not easy
>> to install DRBL in skolelinux, since DRBL and LTSP use
>> most of the same services, such as DHCP, TFTP, NFS, NIS...
>> The main difference between DRBL and LTSP
>> is the former (DRBL) is distributed resources,
>> and the latter (LTSP) is centralized resources.
>
> hmm... i see.. you don't happen to have a paper
> describing all those features, with a comparison?
> such a paper definitely is interesting!
Just one in FAQ:
http://drbl.sourceforge.net/faq/index.php#path=./1_Common&entry=01_DRBL_LTSP.faq
>
> Kurt - are there any advances in skolelinux+DRBL?
>
>>> i think it would be great if Steven+Yao-Tsung
>>> could come to germany to show clonezilla at
>>> the skolelinux test centre in guetersloh:
>>> http://wiki.skolelinux.de/TestZentrum
>>>
>>> germany is best in summer, of course,
>>> so maybe you guys can come over at
>>> the end of august to the FrOSCon?
>
>> Sven, we'd like to be there, however, the expense for us
>> to be there is very high, and I do not think my boss will
>> let us be there again, since we have the quota limit for
>> travel budget, and the scheduled travels are fixed this year.
>> It's almost impossible for us to propose
>> new one and my boss will approve it.
>
> too bad :-/
>
>> Anyway, thank you for sharing this info with us.
>
> you are welcome!
>
> so.. let's think about *next* year.
>
> there is both the FOSDEM (in brussels.be) and
> the linux days in Chemnitz.de very close together.
> the FOSDEM is *very* much for developers -
> and the linux days are a lot for community.
> how about those? interested?
Yes, very interested. Let's discuss more when they approach.
Regards,
Steven.
>
> Kurt has been to Chemnitz several times now -
> and Odile has been to chemnitz this year..
> Odile - how about your view on this event?
> have you written about it in your blog yet?
>
> Sven
- --
Steven Shiau <steven _at_ nchc org tw> <steven _at_ stevenshiau org>
National Center for High-performance Computing, Taiwan.
http://www.nchc.org.tw
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Regards/AmicaLinuxement/Saludos/Viele Gruesse!
Kurt Gramlich
--
kurt@skolelinux.de
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http://www.skolelinux.de
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