Ubuntu Server with LTSP in real life

[Brian Fahrlander]

Michael T. Richter wrote:
> On Fri, 2007-30-03 at 03:37 -0500, Brian Fahrlander wrote:
>>     Second, Paul, that's very cool; I started in LTSP back when
>> Etherboot had just changed over, probably about 1996-97. I had 12 users
>> running old tired 486's in a lumber yard, and only a couple of things
>> caused me grief:
> 
> Aren't diskless workstations just another word for "single point of 
> massive failure"?  I've never understood the appeal in this day and age 
> where you can get old P/P2 (and even P3) hardware *complete with disk* 
> for a song and a dance.  What am I missing?

     The server is a key point, for sure...but administration on them is 
ULTRA simple.  And the memory and disk is _shared_, part of the economy. 
They're mostly used in business environments, since sound is/was a 
little difficult.

     But a single server for LTSP isn't any more silly than a single 
Microsoft server. (Well, except that there's no CircusWare making your 
life a living hell).  Take viruses and other garbage out of the mix and 
there's almost no reason to ever reboot.

     And when, like in the City of Largo, they find that getting 
workstations for $5 instead of $300 makes good fiscal sense, too.  In 
fact, most of the time the very same machine you'd upgrade so you could 
run Vista as a server would be the exact machine that would host 15-20 
or more LTSP, $5 workstations.  I know we were running 12 busy 
workstations on a P2/800 with no problems or delays; it's very 
economical.  Not to mention a lot of fun.