Re: [Ltsp-discuss] About to attempt first LTSP install

[Rob O. <ro...@pt...>]

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 08:41:36AM -0500, Donny Brooks wrote:
> Hello all,
> 
>      I am about to venture out and setup a demo system to test out LTSP for my work place. We are looking into the future and like what we see so far. I have been dabbling in similar setups since late 1999 to early 2000 so I have some basics. but so much has changed now. Here is what we would like to see happen in the testbed:
> 
> Run Ubuntu on a "server" with LTSP installed
> have a windows machine (xp, vista, 7, or a combination of them) to serve windows programs to the clients
> have about 3-5 "client" machines to test with.
> 
> This is planned to be done in a closed testbed off our main network. I have a few questions though....
> 
> 1. What version of Ubuntu should I look at? I would like to test 10.04 but I have read here on the list where people are having issues with it.

Many people, myself included, recommend not adopting a new Ubuntu
version until it's been out for a month or so.  The release cycle is so
fast that new releases aren't always as rock-solid as they could be.  Of
course, if you're just testing the waters this might be ok with you.
But if things don't work well, don't get discouraged -- just try a
different release.

> 2. Would I need the server to be i386 or amd64 install? I have read that all clients need to be 32bit anyways but the server may have more memory than 32-bit can read

You can run a 64-bit server with 32-bit clients.  You need to build the
chroot with the "--arch i386" option.

> 3. What is the best way to tie windows programs into the ltsp server? I am thinking I may need to use the ltsp-cluster instead of the standalone. 

You could try to run the windows programs on the LTSP server, using
wine.  Sometimes this works.  The most foolproof way to do what you
want, though, is to run a Windows terminal server and let your LTSP
clients connect to that.

> 4. As long as a client can network boot I should be able to use it to test, correct? We don't have any "thin clients" currently, but I can remove the hard drives from a few pc's and test with them.

You don't need to remove the hard drives.  Just change the boot order to
boot from the network first (or boot from a gpxe cd, if you can't PXE
boot natively).

-Rob