Thin client question - (I think?)

[Oliver Grawert]

hi,
Am Freitag, den 22.02.2008, 23:11 -0800 schrieb Patton Echols:


> 1. Do I have that about right?  Or am I missing some major piece of the 
> puzzle.
>     1.a. Would this be a Ubuntu thing for the clients?  Or something else.

[1] will help you to get an ubuntu terminal server runing, that
includes the opportunity to add a rdesktop client to it with some manual
extra work (we include rdesktop by default from hardy on, former
releases need some manual work), so your diskless clients would boot off
the ubuntu server box but connect to the windows machine at login ...

another option i know many people use in educational environments is to
use wine or any other windows emulating software on an ubuntu LTSP
server without involving a windows install at all if you only need a
certain amount of apps ...

in any case, the latter enables you to run MS software with single user
licenses on a multiuser system without any technical probs (but ideed
its illegal if you dont have the proper license (thus the mentioning of
edu above, they usually have open licenses that allow such stuff))

> 2. Is there a dummy friendly guide that anyone knows of that will fill 
> in the gaps of my limited knowledge?
install the edubuntu handbook (from the edubuntu-docs package) it has
the most recent and detailed description of ubuntu terminal services

> 3. What about users accessing thumb drives and cd/dvd drives locally?  
> And if not, how is that handled?
works fine in native ubuntu terminal servers through ltspfs, not sure
how much work is involved to make it work on a rdesktop connection to
windows.
> 
> Note: This is a production office and is very unlikely want to shift 
> gears to the Linux world.*  Also, even w/ the costs of incremental 
> change out of desktops, probably will not hire an expert to do a thin 
> client install unless some amateur (that's me) can demonstrate proof of 
> concept with the existing installation.

no matter which OS you use here, using diskless terminals usually saves
about 80% of power costs your company has for PCs atm ... maintenance
costs drop to nearly nothing as well (replacing a thin client thats
broken is involving as much knowledge as changing a lightbulb and there
is no possible dataloss since all data is stored on the server) 

if you would use plain ubuntu with no windows involved you would even
only have to maintain a single machine (only the LTSP server as
*everything* runs centrally on there) i guess you can imagine the cost
savings vs maintaining 30 workstations here :)

ciao
	oli

[1] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/LTSPQuickInstall

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