Re: knoppix and ubuntu?
On Wed, Jul 05, 2006 at 12:23:20PM +0200, Michael Creel wrote:
> Klaus Knopper wrote:
> >On Wed, Jul 05, 2006 at 09:25:22AM +0200, Michael Creel wrote:
> >>One thing that really distinguishes Knoppix in my opinion is the fat
> >>client terminal server. It's amazing that this has been around for 3
> >>years or so, and no "major" distros have similar functionality yet. There
> >>is some talk in Ubuntu circles of making this happen in the next version.
> >>Getting a fat client server to work both from a live CD and from an
> >>installed version would be pretty useful.
> >
> >Our knoppix-terminalserver script should work in Ubuntu as well,
> >concerning the live CD/DVD. For running it from an installed version,
> >there are several changes necessary, since the script is designed to
> >export the compressed filesystem, and not an already unpacked system.
> >
> >Regards
> >-Klaus Knopper
>
> I have played around a bit with running the a modified version of the
> knoppix-terminalserver script from a remaster of the Kubuntu live CD. Some
> packages need to be added (dialog, xdialog, dhcp3-server, tftpd-hpa,
> syslinux, nfs-kernel-server and maybe some others).
knoppix@4[~]$ dpkg -s knoppix-terminalserver
Package: knoppix-terminalserver
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: knoppix
Installed-Size: 220
Maintainer: Klaus Knopper <knoppix@knopper.net>
Architecture: i386
Version: 0.5-33
Depends: dhcp3-server, tftpd-hpa, nfs-kernel-server, mknbi, syslinux
Recommends: squid
Looks like I forgot (x)dialog in the Depends line, but everything else
should be there. mknbi is not actually needed anymore, because
rom-o-matic.net now supports direct PXE boot and does not require the
tagged image format.
> Even after this,
> kubuntu seems to not like double quotes and parentheses in scripts.
I cannot imaging ubuntus bash being incompatible with GNU-bash. If there
is a wrong double quote in knoppix-terminalserver, it is probably my
fault. At which line(s) do you get an error?
> I don't
> know what's going on there, haven't had time to check much yet. All in all,
> I find that Knoppix works better as a live CD, and that adapting the
> terminal server script is a little more complicated than I imagined it
> would be.
It shouldn't be complicated, as long as the dependencies are installed.
> I'm sure that a good bash scripter would get it going quickly,
> but hey, it already works in Knoppix.
>
> The innovative part of the Ubuntu project is that they seem to plan to make
> a fat client terminal server work after the distro is installed. It seems
> that Mandrake has (had) something like this working, but I find few
> references:
>
> http://dir.filewatcher.com/d/Mandrake/10.1/noarch/Networking/Other/terminal-server-1.5-20mdk.noarch.rpm.31710.html
>
> I understand that making the knoppix-terminalserver work after installation
> to HD would require some configuration along the lines of
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DisklessUbuntuHowto
Actually, the Knoppix-Terminalserver is designed to provide the SAME
boot procedure that works from CD/DVD, to network clients. I.e., the
compressed data is NFS-mounted instead of the CD (which is good for
saving bandwidh). If you have an uncompressed, installed system, the
approach of booting is quite different, an knoppix-terminalserver is
probably not the right tool.
> This looks pretty easy to do. It seems to me that the big issue would be
> making things reasonably secure. It would be nice to have a general Debian
> package to do this. (whine, whine).
Aren't there Debian packages from the LTSP project?
The knoppix-terminalserver is basically just a configuration frontend
for DHCP, TFTP and NFS to export a live CD to a network.
> Where did you happen to get the idea for the knoppix-terminalserver, if you
> don't mind my asking? That was a great idea - remarkably functional.
Giving GNU/Linux based classes in classrooms where only legacy operating
systems are installed, can be done by copying a CD or DVD for each
individual student, OR, just providing network boot capabilities. Since
the server-side programs (DHCP, NFS, TFTP) were already present on
Knoppix anyways, all that's missing was a quick setup tool. Hence the
idea of the knoppix-terminalserver script that just creates the config
and launches the services, and then you can run an entire classroom or
internet cafe, using only a single CD.
Regards
-Klaus Knopper
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