Configuring edubuntu server to serve wireless thin clients

[Gavin McCullagh]

On Sat, 12 May 2007, David Ally wrote:

> Has anyone implemented and able to configure Edubuntu server to serve
> thin clients with wireless network interface cards?

I always imagined this would not be possible.  HOwevere, I came across a
guy a while back who mentioned how he was working on doing exactly this.  I
can't recall his name or the place I found it.  However, if you look at the
rom-o-matic etherboot images there is suport in there for the prism2
chipset which as I understand it is only used in wireless.

http://rom-o-matic.net/5.4.3/

So, it's possible you could make an etherboot floppy for a machine with a
prism2 wifi card.  I haven't done this, but it seems possible.  I presume
you'd have to run an open unecncrypted network and I imagine it would be
preferable if there were only one essid visible.  It might be worth a go
anyway.  Bear in mind you must carefully pick your wifi card.

If you get anywhere with this I'd be really interested to hear about it.

> Will using any of the other booting methods apart from pxe booting be
> able to activate the wireless devices and able to load the necessary
> images on the thin clients?

You should be able to put together a base system (moreorless equivalent to
the edubuntu chroot) on a machine which then starts ldm and connects to the
server as a thin client does.  That's hardly what you'd call network
booting though.  Beyond that I'd say you're looking at something like the
above.

A more straightforward possibility is to find a cheap supplier of wireless
access points.  As they will have an ethernet interface, you can plug an
ordinary PXE network card into one.

Gavin