Maximum Addressable RAM

[Butch Arias]

Dear Ubuntu Techies and  Users,

Our school has been on Edubuntu for three years now and we have been happy
with it. Last year we used as server an Intel Core-2 Duo with 4 GB RAM.

This coming school year I plan to add more thin clients, from an existing 16
we plan to add about 24 more. The thin clients we will be using this time
are old IBM Celeron 766 32 MB RAM we got from a second-hand computer shop.
But if we will add more thin clients then we would need more than 4 GB RAM
(RAM - 512 MB Server, 128MB per thin client). In this case I believe we need
to use the 64-bit version the fact that the i386 could address only up to 4
GB RAM.

Questions:
  (1) Will the 64-bit version work with Intel Core-2 Duo?
  (2) If it will work (or I will use an AMD 64) would there be NO problem if
the thin clients are 32-bit?
  (3) I tested a unit (32 MB RAM) and it worked with Edubuntu 7.10. Is 32 MB
enough or I need  64 MB for 8.04?
  (3) In case the setup for 64bit Server and 32-bit client will NOT work:
      (3a)   Will it be possible to divide the thin clients (to divide the
CPU load) across two servers (4 GB RAM each) but still share a common disk
system?
      (3b)   Will it be better to have two separate network servers and use
just enough thin clients until the server runs out of RAM required for the
clients? How may users access their files in case they logged in the other
"network?"

Thank you very much in advance. Your previous help have been very useful
indeed.

Butch Arias
Saint Philomena School
Lucena City, Philippines
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