Re: Powerful diskless client

[Michael West <web@mitzit.net>]

On Fri, Aug 30, 2002 at 03:15:58AM -0500, Elizabeth Barham wrote:
> Michael West <web@mitzit.net> writes:
> 
> > I have a box which I intend to use as a diskless client, but it is
> > very powerful for such job.  It has 320 Mb RAM.  I was wondering if
> > there was a way of using this to advantage.  For instance, I could
> > run a small root and xserver in RAM, and connect via XDM or such for
> > the rest.
> 
> LTSP? <http://www.ltsp.org/>

     Thanks, this site looks great.  But what does it provide that the
     Debian diskless packages do not?
> 
> > I don't understand enough about Xservers/clients to think through
> > the pluses and minuses of this.  Any ideas?
> > 
> > I have built a bootable CD for the box which runs in ramfs using
> > timos rescue, but have not yet put the xserver in.  Should I just
> > use bootp and not worry about it?
> 
> I personally wouldn't use such a powerful machine as a lite X terminal
> (such as with LTSP) although if you just had it boot into it's own,
> full system using a NFS root filesystem, it would be nice to work
> on. IMO bootp is easier to deal with esp. in regards to upgrades than
> going to the trouble of burning a new cd, etc.
> 
     I guess the question I need to answer is:
     Will KDE3 perform better on a dedicated Pentium II 300 Mhz with 320
     Mb Ram or as a diskless client to a Athlon 1400 Mhz with 512 Mb Ram
     which is also running various daemons.  No way to tell without
     trying both in my own environment I guess.  Probably dedicated is
     better as long as I am running freenet.  

     Thanks for your insights.

     ~Michael