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How To Create a Linux Network for Peanuts
securitas writes: LinuxWorld has the first installment of a series on how to go from being a Windows based shop to a Linux one." One of the article's points, one that I strongly agree with, is how overpowered the machines are that most people buy.
Don't you touch my Athlon CPU 1.4Ghz you little punk...
Yes I run Linux, and yes I do Java development for a living on www.jboss.org
marcf
The real mnf999 always posts as anonymous coward
I thought that I might never have to hear or read that word again. The bad memories of downed networks because some user unplugged his machine or knocked off the connector or removed the terminator are still way too fresh.
Why can't we all just get along without it? Splurge the eleven dollars for a 10/100 NIC and put in CAT 5.
This article is way off-base on several points. If my employer suggested that I maintain a garage sale network as described, I'd find another job. Yes, X-windows terminals are a perfectly valid way to go, but put a halfway decent machine on the job. You and your users will be much happier.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso
Often times you simply cannot find cheap hardware to purchase, unless you want to build it yourself or go with refurbished units.
Build it yourself is a poor option because it is very hard to find the quantities of parts you need, especially since business environments value similarity in desktop platforms. So you end up with groups of five or ten machines with whatever was on sale that week at Fry's Electronics.
If you are like most Windows-based companies you turn to vendors like Dell/Compaq/IBM and then the problem is that the cheaper machine you can buy is still a 900MHz Celeron with 256MB of RAM and a 20GB hard drive (granted it's only $600 but still what if you just need it to run training applications through a web browser?). Plus since you are riding the tail end of the cost range, you again enter the problem of having a month go by and suddenly you have completly different hardware.
So it's a choice between
* one vendor to resolve problems
* one platform to support/rollout
* one price that's not so great
or
* many vendors fingerpointing each other
* need a different image for every 5th system
* a price hovering around the lowest possible
For home/small business users I think the second choice is a valid one, but for large business and corporations I just don't think they'll ever see the value in it.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I just finished reading the article and the first thing that comes to my mind is a big "so what"...
so you can spend $30 and get a so called "productivity" machine. He doesn't get it, what is stopping microsoft is not the small low end machines it is the big dataserver class machines with Linux.
See I develop on JBoss.org, a J2EE middleware in Java, what we see is people using us on Linux (and windows and solaris and AIX and...) with BIG BOXES. THAT is really hurting microsoft, that "mid range" enterprise market that they thought they were going to "own" and therefore kill Unix.
The only reason it is failing so far is that the server side is impossible for them to control due to Linux there. I don't really care that you can turn your PalmOS in a router, I do care that you can create a cheap datacenter with Linux boxens at Rackspace with JBoss on it.
The article seems to claim that running on small hardware will hurt MS, no, it barely hurts Intel and Intel will push Linux where Java takes it in the enterprise application arena.
the rest is kiddies scripting their enlightment settings
The real mnf999 always posts as anonymous coward
One of the article's points, one that I strongly agree with, is how overpowered the machines are that most people buy.
Maybe if LinuxWorld got some decent powered machines, they wouldn't be Slashdotted already.
But most newbies who read this article will try linx at home on their old P100 - P200 with 32 MB and find that the GUIs are simply extreemly slow and unresponsive in comparison to Windows2000.
A KDE desktop needs a fast computer and even then it will always be more sluggish than Windows2000 ( yes, with prelink enabled ). Articles like these are of no use to spread Linux, because any newcomer will simply be annoyed if he finds out the truth and go back to windows.
too many people wanting the latest and greatest. there are several people that i work with that use 300-400MHtz machines with no problem. how do they do it? they haven't fallen in the the MS/Corel/Intuit/'fill in the blank' propaganda trap of having the newest version.
i use quickbooks 1999!
it all comes down to understanding what you *need* to do.
there are people out there that need/deserve powerful machines and there are people that could be just fine with second or third tier equipment.
e.
This could be for a lot of reasons: mis-configuration, mis-design, software load on the system, bloat, whatever. There are users who are proad of the number of open windows they can have on a desktop, like this makes them a power user or something.
of course, there is the old "it's not a bug, it's a feature" factor as well"
Comparisons to known operating systems are obvious
- - -
Radio Free Nation
is a news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
When i first saw this headline, i thought "oh no! a peanut-powered webserver! guess they ran out of potatoes..."
On second thought, maybe Snoopy, Charlie Brown and Friends are finally getting penguin powered?
I didn't read the article, but did it go over how to get your applications running on Linux too? So I have Linux running on all the PC's. What about AutoCAD, ProEngineer, or ALGOR? Oh yeah, they don't run on Linux. So I guess that even though I'm running a free OS in my company which cost next to nothing to implement, the author still hasn't figured out that IT'S THE APPS THAT COUNT, STUPID!
yea, they are overpowered, but where are you going to buy a new (with warranty) pII 450?
besides, the new versions of windows pretty much require double the processor as the previous ones. here is an example:
win95 -ran great on a-> p150
win98 -ran great on a-> pII300
win2000 -ran great on a-> pIII700 (bigger jump there)
winMe -seen it running alright on-> pIV1ghz
XP -well, we will see-> ???
strange how a list like this for all of the linux distros would probably max out around the pII300 systems.
flesh eating ants records
Hmm. There are lots of NC's that will run GNU/Linux for you.
They are also a lot easier to maintain.
So why bother with anything else ?
Are mainframes good or bad?
In the 70s we used them because individual workstations couldn't have enough power to run applications. Then, when they got powerful enough, everyone split apart. Now, we're talking about using X to go back to the idea of mainframes! Weren't there bad problems with peak-hour load across the company? I don't see how this would be any different.
Is Linuxworld just suggesting a way to give a lot of people resources cheaply but at the expense of CPU-sharing?
Gnu Not Unix.
BSD is Unix. GNU/Linux isn't.
As someone pointed out, build-it yourself generally sucks for any network with more than 20 computers or so. Finding antiquated parts in those quantities can be difficult. But for smaller networks, it's great. And as it happens, a smaller business or home or organization needing a small network is more likely to need to pinch pennies than a mega-conglomerate wih hundreds or thousands of machines, for whom such a setup would be too difficult.
Dyolf Knip
Gotta love the /. effect. I had a chance to mirror it quickly here.
Make sure you try the original link first, please - it seems to come and go
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
At $1.60, they're worth exactly as much as VA Linux has in the bank. Their business is valued at nothing.
Let's cover the points on morale first:
Do you want a four year old computer on YOUR desk? Of course not. You don't care if the IT manager says that it meets your needs, you just want to get your work done as quickly and easily as possible. If I tried this implimentation in my shop, I'd expect to field complaints from dozens of users saying that "their e-mail and Netscape is taking too long to load". If they bitched loud and long enough, their boss will give them the 1.4 Ghz that they want, but not without giving everyone a bunch of headaches first.
Many of these people have faster computers at home, so they're used to having better desktop performance than what a Pentium 200 with 128MB of RAM can offer.
Now, the points on productivity:
Not only will these workers be very annoyed when a slow computer is put on their desk, but their work output will suffer as they wait an extra thirty minutes each day for their applications to load and to save their information. Most of these people are being payed $20+ an hour, so the cost savings from buying cheap equipment will be sucked up quickly.
Also, If the user is a current Windows user, they'll need to be re-trained for both Linux and it's office applications. It might over a week for the less-skilled workers to get the hang of it. While they are learning, don't expect them to be happy about this, either.
Older computers tend to break down more, as well, and without warrantees that support cost is coming out of the companies pocket.
In short, this article makes the critical mistake of putting your users FIRST when planning an IT solution. Keeping your employees/customers productive and happy is a LOT more expensive than most companies IT costs. If you try to pass off cheap PC's on your workers, you'll pay for it tenfold with creating tons of new problems.
I've tried running X on a 486 with 24 MB RAM and I was waiting quite a while for simple tasks to complete. A 486 is fine for a command-line interface, but definitely not X. The minimum should be a Pentium with 32MB RAM.
That's my 2 cents.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
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Reason: Document contains no data
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I have wanted to try this on my own at home, but wanted to know if the Xterminal setup will support the following:
1) Sound. Streaming MP3s, etc.
2) Internet browsing.
3) Plug ins like Real Audio.
Thanks!
Why do articles like this always skip the real cost of moving to a new OS? They act like every company has a linux expert just kicking around waiting to be utilized if they ever change their os. The cost isn't in the hardware, its in the people and the training. Like it or not, most offices have been using MS based client software on their desktop for years, to switch a whole office, even a small one, is not the same as for some geek in his bedroom to create a peer network so he and his friends can play quake.
The training/learning costs associated with moving not only one pc but a whole office would be overwhelming. No OS is dummy proof in setup. You can write off hardware expenses - you can't with people expenses.
Why do I always feel the people who write these articles have never worked in an office? They think, somehow the person who threw a fit when their desktop background changed when you upgraded them from win95 to 98 is going to be able to handle all the changes in moving to a new OS? I don't think so.
What is the benefit to a company? These are not some academic exercises - a company needs to weigh cost vs benefit. With zero benefit and high cost, it just doesn't make sense. Also lets be honest, hardware is cheap - you buy it once and it last 3+ years. Not much of a problem for most companies.
Chet
Do people that write articles like this actually support normal users every day? Go tell people you are giving them a 5 year old PC that runs a front-end that they can't really customize.
Tell the CIO you're buying 5 year old PCs with no warranty or support. Come on.... Look at the math. We order new 1GHz P3 Compaq workstations today for $999 or less. The cost of Windows in that is like $100. Is it really worth $100/PC to hack up some other solution for me? No..not with 250 users it isn't. That's why Linux isn't storming the desktop. The gain just doesn't offset the cost yet. It isn't a complete desktop in a box like Windows is. Sure, StarOffice is good, but it's just good..not GREAT. It's well worth a few hundred dollars per user to give them Office.
If I don't give my users easy to use software that lets them get their job done I get fired. No one cares about free software unless it offers the same ease of use for less money. If it's the same TCO there is no reason to switch, it has to be BETTER and CHEAPER. Right now it might be cheaper but it sure isn't better.
For now Linux stays in my data center.
In principle; I agree. For many office-related tasks.. these new Ghz P-4's are rediculous. Something a quarter of the speed would be adequate. HOWEVER...
Let's say you are setting up a new office. Where, exactly, are you going to buy those machines? You can't. If you buy old, used machines, your costs in maintenance go way up. You want a bunch of machines that are the same, it makes support much easier. A problem in one applies to all, and so does the solution.
So when you go out and buy 100 brand new mid-level dell workstations.. sure, you're buying something faster than you need... but you're buying them because they will WORK.
The SLD may be sourceforge, but it redirects you to goatse.cx!!!
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
As a high-schooler whose summer job involved (among other things) a small-scale Linux deployment inside a ~200-person office, the strategies of doing so interest me greatly. However, I've always seen a few issues with remote execution and thin clients that I hope someone here with more experience can address.
/usr tree remotely? The senior admins won't let me do any of that if it will degrade the network.
There are three levels of remote management you can do: None, mounting certain directories remotely, and launching only an Xserver on the client. The main problems I've had with the second and third options are:
Does it take a substantial amount of bandwidth to mount (for example) the
Will the users notice the delays substantially on a 100Mb/s network? I understand that this may be ok for word processing, but some of our users (and the main reason why we have linux in our company now) are running airport simulation models that have a complex, graphics-heavy UI and generate reams and reams of data. Would putting apps like that across the network impede their performance substantially?
I can already ssh into our machines and make them run any program I've uploaded to a certain directory overnight. Are the maintenance savings really substantial enough to outweight the speed/bandwidth issues? Thanks.
Friends don't let friends misuse the subjunctive.
I will say, though, it is about the "best" goatse.cx trick i've seen - using a download on sourceforge.net to redirect you...
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
i cheerfully ran windows 98 on my P120 laptop for the last two years. I got an offer on it, so i went out and bought a gorgeous 266. It wont play counterstrike, but its still bling enough for me :)
________________________________________________
lots of AC's surpose schools out and lots of bord lawyers (-;
X get a card that has hardware acceleration is my advice that means one that has good support
(me I go for an S3 card every time as the old ones are well supported in XFree86 3.x)
realistaclly you want a window manger that is low on grapgics if you can get people to run TWM the better because that is rock solid and low bandwidth
(less XPM to shove across the pipe makes john a happy boy)
realistaclly this setup has been tried alot and works but really
how about storys about NIS and adding crypto into it
how about mergeing win2k and unix logins
lots of things I would like to know rather than beating the old TCO drum realistically who cares people go out and buy what they like in terms of cheapness whatever you want a bang for your buck then go down the tip and grab a machine put a free Word Processor on it and away you go
what really makes the differance is manageability why do you think everyone started going down the thin client route thats because its easy to manage and means less hassles and less hassles = cheaper
please stop trying to pull these stunts and try something out
regards
john jones
Here is why this doesn't work.
1)If you only have a few workstations for a lot of people, you are going to end up paying people to twiddle their thumbs while someone else types a memo. This negates any savings on having cheap/fewer workstations in the first couple of months.
2)Slower workstations are, well, slower. those small groups of 30 second waits add up. If you want an efficient office, you dont pay people to wait for their machines to load data/get email, etc. New hardware is dirt cheap right now. You can get a good 1ghz system for 700 dollars or so, so why not get one.
3)Older equipment breaks more and is harder to find parts for. Try to find 72 pin simms that are guaranteed to work for a decent price. didnt think so. How about bios issues with those old 2 dollar motherboards when you try to slap a newer hard drive on them. Digging up AT power supplies? Yes, they do still exist, but they are getting a little more difficult to find. and the pain of working with older machines when they break is hellacious. swapping the power supply in an ATX machine takes about 2 minutes. In an AT machine, it takes about half an hour since I have to pull the entire machine apart. And yes, I do do this regularly. I changed 2 AT power supplies last week. (I work at a Uni, not everyone has new machines).
4) Old networking sucks. One of the major points of having a network is having the ability to share files. This means you want switched 100mb everywhere. Again, it is cheap enough, why do you pay people to wait. Our main fileserver is on gigabit fiber, and we use it constantly. Copper gigabit network cards are coming way down in price right now, the switches are coming down soon, so you might as well be prepared to go gigabit when you need to.
5) No office is in a vacuum. Abiword and StarOffice may be great, but none of them read all Office file formats perfectly yet. You still need to use microsoft products to communicate with other offices, for better or worse. Not a troll, just the truth.
6) Outlook. omygod Outlook is neat. I never saw the utility of outlook and exchange until I worked in an office that used it efficiently. It is at the point where it is indespensible. The ability to share calendars, email, move files around, schedule meetings, etc is wonderful. Yes, this does mean you have to run NT and exchange on a sever, bt we have made this concession. With the exception of our exchange server and our pdc, we are all FreeBSD.
In an office of 20 people, a 1000-1200 bucks per every 2 years (our average upgrade cycle) for each person isn't a huge cost compared to the salary, electricity, water bills, etc. Why not spend that kind of cash to make sure that work can actually get done and you dont have a sysadmin running around saying "it almost works!" or here's a workaround.
I'm a unix admin, I hate administering NT, but I have no doubt as to its current utility in most work environments. The benefits it provides outweighs the costs of maintaining it, at least until the unix variants get up to speed on the capabilities.
I can finally network my peanuts.
Quibble: a 486 is probably too slow to run StarOffice. That thing is a beast.
I used to buy the very top of the line hardware and could never get enough power. A 386/33 was non-negotiable -- the 386/25 was just too weak. But now bottom of the line is more than enough.
More serious point: WHY WHY WHY are fonts so fscking hard on Linux? I've installed RH 5.2, 6.0 and just recently 7.1, and setting up fonts was different on each one, and always a black art.
StarOffice's cooperation with font servers actually seemed to take a step backwards at one point, and I simply stopped using it. Why don't modern Linux distributions just include the damned font server, at least in the "desktop" configurations? I understand they can't include the fonts themselves, but at least including the font server would be a great start. That is THE single biggest barricade to Linux on the desktop, given the existence of suites like StarOffice.
I don't have anything against network computing but I wouldnt buy 20 junkers for business use.
Lets look at your typical 486 beater you can pick up at a garage sale:
1. Nearing the end of its life cycle - that means better buy some power supplies that fit that 486 chassis.
2. You might not need much drive space but that 250 meg drive will be as sloooooooow. This may not be an issue depending on how much local drive use you expect.
3. Video cards. Your users are going to want to run at 800x600 or higher and those cheesy cards you find on a 10 year old machines won't cut it. Better buy some cheapo modern cards.
4. NIC, no biggie if you don't mind running at 10 mbit or using thinnet.
5. No USB, may or may not be a problem.
6. Floppy drives need cleaning/replacement if you want a dependable read/write. Floppies suck on new machines with new media let alone 10 year old boxes.
7. Keyboard and mice may not be to the liking of your users. I'm using a keyboard from a 486 right now on my Duron box and love it. Clean/replace mice is required in most cases.
That being said, in a corporate environment just buy the cheapest celeron or whatever to get some new equipment. For non-profits, hobbyists, communes, post-apocalyptic societies etc its a good idea but go for a Pentium level machine with some decent video.
...Umm actually most office equipment is replaced in the U.S. every three years because that's how long it takes to become fully amortized - or worthless - to the Feds for tax purposes, and thus to the corporate bean counters. The idea that M$ and the PC manufacturers "plan" this is nuts... They take good advantage of this tax code "loophole" to be sure, but the same can be said of any vaendor of virtually anything from staplers to company cars.
More specificially, Linux does, if your system has a sound card. Don't forget that unix treats a file, aa device and a server mount as the same thing... a file. Whether the file is here or there, you can use it if you can open it, whether or not its on a "local" hard disk.
Too much ANTI-MS BS, if this article was an editorial, fine, that I couldn't criticize, but if it was targetted for System administrators or people about to deploy a network in a small company, it litteraly missed the target.
:) ) But unfortunately, probably didn't archieve it's own objective.
1. Who cares how much ressource MS apps sucks and costs, if we are reading that article, chances are we already KNOW all that crap and are looking for an alternative.
2. About no one uses 386/486 anymore, writting a paragraph on how the pentium III are useless horsepower to run all these apps and a 386 would do fine is pointless, unless you plan to deploy a network in a 3rd world country.
3. It gives you pointers, nothing good for someone comming from a windows env. You want a step by step guide, sounding easy a-la-windows install, to make it look simple and straightfoward. That's the big problem with some linux article, the authors knows their systems so well, that they can't put themselves in the shoes of someone that install linux and doesn't know how to access his floppy from the shell because he's used to a:.
This is *NOT* a rant, but a constructive criticism about an article that attracted a lot of people (server was half dead
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
And he addressed your trollish arguments as well.
The maintainance expenses are where the money is being saved, not just the startup. Why backup 5,000 computers one at a time when you can just backup one server cluster?
If your worried about the "network going down" then you have other problems which you should spend time fixing instead of posting to Slashdot.
..because this setup is going to scale soooo well when you add another 20 users. I suppose you could get another cheap 'mainframe' and spread logins accross them. that won't confuse people at all.
"And that is the key to economical server centric computing with Linux. The PCs used for workstations can be obsolete, amortized, depreciated, recycled or free."
Obviously you do not live in a small town. Let me relate a quick story about one small business (my parents') that showcases why $25 computers often don't cut it.
My parents live in a small town in Indiana, and work in an even smaller town of 1200 people. My dad is the only lawyer in the town and my mom does the deeds and land transactions for the town.
They have an office with about 5 people. Of those 5, my mother and my dad's secretary have a computer, and there is a third computer for another person to use (usually the secretary's kids.) My dad is a complete technophobe who still refuses to touch a computer. My mother and my dad's secretary can use the Internet and Microsoft Word. I was their network/systems admin until I moved to California a couple of years back.
Their three computers are all specials of the month bought at various places I used to work. That means they have three generic computers that tend to break often since they are all more than a couple of years old, and have to put up with abuses ("Netscape stopped responding, so I unplugged the computer...")
When I left, they quickly sought out the only computer person in town, who refuses to support the computers well because they didn't come from his store. He routinely blames my mother for mistakes that obviously are not her fault. Often the computers are down for a day or more as he struggles to figure out what the problem would be.
To fix the persistent issues between this guy and my mother, I have agreed to get a quote from IBM for a new set of computers that would be all the same. Then they could call an IBM rep whenever they have problems, and get a quick and easy answer to their problems without having to worry about this guy complaining that "well, I have to charge you $100 for that 4MB video card because you didn't buy the computer from me."
The other reason my mom wants to go with IBM is that they have really cool-looking black computers and flat-panel monitors to go with them. The front office will now have a computer with a flat-panel monitor that people will see when they walk in. We are also going to get my dad an IBM laptop.
I think the author of this article forgot that in a lot of situations, a $25 X-terminal will not cut it. Sure, if you're staffed with a Linux guru, that would be an easy solution. But don't forget that your Linux guru would probably cost you $50,000 a year (or more!) to keep on staff. It doesn't make sense for offices like my parents' to do something like that. They want the 800 number support from a company like IBM or Dell, and they are definitely willing to pay the $1500 per computer to get it, if it means fewer support calls to the local guy.
Nor does flashy interlaced screens. In my opion , a P200 WILL outperform a P75 if there is alot of graphical maniplation at a high res.
Yet he's using machines for terminals that are powerful enough to run StarOffice without any trouble. Why run the apps on the server?
There's an opportunity here. One of the remaining Linux players should build up a "Linux for business desktops" install, as a boxed product. Designed to install on low-end machines, it should install just the stuff needed by non-programmer business users, along with a suitable predetermined configuration with good security. Offer it as a boxed product, with one CD and one good manual, covering both the system and the office app, that's all you need to get work done. Offer a matching "Linux for business servers", with a compatible configuration. Sell through places like Costco and Smart and Final. Push the simplicity aspect - computers for business, without the bells and whistles.
While I don't disagree with your points, the main idea of this article is to use old PC hardware *as X terminals*, and having a half-decent modern machine act as the application server for these terminals.
I think this scheme could work, given two amendments:
-Use high quality, modern video cards.
-Use highest quality keyboard and mouse (you know, the latest and greatest logitech optical stuff)
-By the best monitors (at least 17", flat screen triniton sort of monitors)
-HIDE the ugly beige P100 from 1995 from the user.
I agree that I would be bummed out if a dusty old 486 or early pentium was sitting at my desk. I probably wouldn't work as hard. But, this way, they never see this ugly machine, and to top it off the components that the user is actually exposed to are top notch.
well if time is peanuts, then that's what putting up this cite cost us. We're anxious to see these guise get nuked. we don't mind coughing up some more "peanuts" for that to happen.
Nothing but good GNUs to report. Doesn't look like there'll be many billyunheirs left after the GNU economy kicks in.
An X terminal (at least, those discussed in the article) runs only X. Nothing else. It gets all X content from the server machine(s). So, opening email and starting Netscape will be quite fast, not '30 minutes' as you describe...
In fact, this configuration most likely will appear faster than what the user has at home, since the server(s) typically are quite fast.
IT MOST CERTAINLY DOES NOT! I stand by both my link and my post.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal
I agree with you completely... I read that and went "my god". why would anyone in their right mind consider using that technology again? I still cringe thinking about trying to maintain that stuff.
:P)
For that matter, the disgustingly low cost of decent quality 10/100 pci nics (netgear comes to mind- I prefer intel or 3com, but cheap is cheap, right?) and the low cost of cat5 or at worst cat3 really makes thinnet an insane concept. For that matter, having all those collisions is not really my idea of fun- investing in a few decently priced switches would improve his network performance by quite a bit. (there's such a thing as LATENCY, besides pure bandwidth
It seems to me that the guy writing this article is some kind of nutjob just out of school or something, who sees a piece of crap PC and says "Hey! that'd make a great (DNS/DHCP/SMTP/whatever) server." and then he proceeds to build it, and go from there.
Now here's my take on it- if that guy worked for me, or I was hired to manage him, I'd fire his ass faster than you can say "GET OUT." people like that are dangerous, because they don't think about some of those important things... like stability, downtime costs, etc. I don't care of the bargain basement box was super cheap, I'd prefer to spend a few more hundred and be sure the damn thing will always run and be something I can get parts for if it breaks.
If I built my array of DHCP servers, or DNS servers, or something like that out of generic desktop 200-300mhz boxes (like he suggests) I would be gone. and I would deserve to get canned. to do that when you need to guarantee that things work is just blatantly retarded.
EOM
IF "peanuts" means viewers, then we'd say that LinuxToday.con is whoreabully aFraUD to lose any of theirs, evidenced by their refusal to post references (links) to other than internet.con sights. nothing GNU about that.
three cheers to mr malduh for not dooing something like that.
greed/fear/failure. IT seems to happen that way A LOT.
I would have thought Snoopy already has a T1 into his doghouse.
I would think the amount of time saved compiling the Linux kernel would more than justify the \outrageous $27 price tag of an AMD 700MHz Duron processor.\
Get a freaking clue man... Those 4MB 72 pin SIMMs in that 486 computer cost over $100 each back when they were installed. You can now buy a 256MB DDR SDRAM module for 30 bucks.
Think of it in terms of cost/performance efficiency as opposed to running Linux on a 486 just because you *can*.
Recently got a donation of 80 p233's
I haven't shown the Tech guy yet, but the guy I was helping set them up with was very amazed by Redhat and Staroffice (he had been doing this at the school the year before aswell).
Monday I am going to setup Redhat 7.1 XFS and install Staroffice, get it on the network, then show it to the head Tech guy.
Does anyone have any suggestions that would help out?
These computers are going into labs that will be used for typing, presentation making (Staroffice has a nice app for that, btw), and web surfing.
They will be printing to a central print server.
Has anyone ever setup something like this?
I'm kinda a linux newbie (I've been using it for 2 years on and off), but I jumped at the chance to save my school 40 grand in licenses.
I don't normally have (much of) a problem with the articles and replies here on /., however this one just takes the biscuit.
Does *anyone* who replied understand how the X server/client system works? Did you even read the article (you must have at least looked at it as it was /.ed a while ago)
Kudos to those of us who do/did, but this article has provided an excellent example of the kind of idiocy which is rife on /.
Please sort it out, people. *DON'T* reply if you don't know what the article is talking about (except perhaps to say 'Where can I find out more?'), and do *READ* the article! This is a news site, soak up the news - headlines do not carry information and skimming an article is like licking an ice cream once and chucking it.
Learning at some schools is like drinking from a Firehose
You need an Athlon 1.4 'just to run a web browser.' Mozilla is still slow, but for linux, the only browser that will properly work with 99.9% of sites out there.
I upgraded my box _just_ for the purpose of browsing the web while in linux without having to take coffee breaks between clicks.
MSIE in win4lin was almost fast enough btw (faster than native mozilla at the time).
Also, X is chatty as we all know. If your network is already chatty, imagine running X over a 10 Megabit connection! My point is that desktops are over powered. They are supposed to be. If your ran all programs on the server, you are going to need a even more expensive server with scads of ram. With the desktops and some storage on the network via Network Attached Storage or a Storage Array Network, a few servers and a production system (Database, webserving...etc etc...) and you have a complete system that even if the infrastructure is down, is still useful. When the network goes, the users can still type up a letter, do a spreadsheet ...etc etc. They may have to save to harddisk and print and move it to the server later, but at least that time was not wasted. User older equipment DOES make sense though. If the user's ain't bitching about the computer being slow, then why replace it??
Gorkman
50% better uptime and reliability than Win98. A stunning admission that they've produced inferior product in the past.
Here's your choice: You can continue to pay your yearly "vig" to Microsoft, or you can get off the treadmill of upgrades and keep the money yourself.
For large IT shops, they'll stick with Microsoft. For a small trucking company where every penny saved goes into the pocket of the owner (who works 18 hour days), guess which way they'll swing?
Sorry, but I've installed 15 Linux & Staroffice systems in 15 different logistics companies since May 2001. The only problem is Access databases, of which that was a problem at one office.
Microsoft has forgotten the small business can't afford $2,000 a year in software upgrades and fees. Linux may never rule on the desktop, but at the current pace, Microsoft sure isn't hurting the effort.
By the way, as far as "reducing costs of ownership", it's at the expense of security. When you have end-users managing web-based server platforms, you get repeated propagation of things like, Code Red (voila!).
Nothing beats a S390 with a big batch of dumb terminals attached. Sure you only get text mode apps, but they were fast text mode apps and they worked. Currently my employer is getting rid of all those text mode apps in favor of web based interfaces which are noticably less responsive, noticably less featureful and oftentimes haven't been implemented yet. If you look at the implementation schedules, many of the teams on the project are already years behind -- many of them haven't even written a line of code yet. But we gotta get rid of the mainframes because the GUI's more user friendly and the web is the wave of the future...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
Big Daddy, Johnny, Burp, Aunt Zelda, Scott, Slurp, Big Momma
I do not believe that the author of this article has any experience with medium- to large-scale networks. X is a very chatty protocol and it does not take much to saturate a network, especially if you are going to be running a very graphic-intensive interface like KDE or Gnome. This is going to have a big impact on the end user so I would not get cheap here. I would strongly consider giving each user a dedicated 10 Mbps switch port and put the server on its own 100 Mbps full duplex port. Also, I would probably keep somewhere between a 10:1 or 20:1 ratio of X terminals per server.
People tend to think that the price of ownership is just the cost of the software, hardware and operating system. They seem to forget the fact that you need to hire people to build and maintain the systems. There is also going to be an impact on business if your end users cannot work. Sure, you can save a lot of money by using free software and building bargain basement systems, but this careless approach that the author describes is just going to lead to disaster. All the money you saved on bottom-of-the-barrel equipment is not going to save your company or your job when you have absolutely no upgrade path because you decided to run thin-net instead of cat5 and now your network is saturated with collisions. Or the network card you chose freezes when the network load goes over 5%. Or your users are frustrated from watching their five-dollar graphics card paint buttons on the screen.
I agree that you do not need top-of-the-line systems to build X terminals, but this is just rediculous and laughable.
Why on earth would anyone want to create a network for Peanuts anyway? They are cartoon characters and can't possibly use a network in the first place. Yea yea yea, I know I saw Cool World and Roger Rabbit too. But those were just movies. If you think that creating a network for Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, and the rest of the gang will ease their pain since Mr. Schultz passed away I would say that you're well intentioned but misguided. In the thousands of Peanuts cartoons, never once did any character show any interest in computers, the internet, or anything remotely related to a network. They did regularly use old timey manual typewriters. If you want to help Peanuts, create them an electric typewriter or a wordprocessor - not a network for goodness sakes.
-Santakrooz
Because it was lame?
This guy basically justifies removing windows desktops for dumb terminals to save money.
Well hey you can do that with Windows as well. Cheap client hardware and run everything via Terminal Services.
Lame lame lame
These things would be perfect even for programming, really. Especially if you're into server side development and use Perl or Python.
If you need a sophisticated IDE then yeah, X terminals may not cut it. KDevelop should work on them. I'm not sure about Kylix.
Even things like the GIMP work fine over X over ethernet. I've done it.
But things like video editing and of course games would not be well suited to X terminals. But how many office users use (or should use) such things?
One thing to consider is that when using low-end hardware for X terms (lets say ~ Pentium 120 with an upgraded video card, and 32MB system RAM), you can afford to stock an inventory in-house of a spare machine for every live working machine. This would be necessary, since a lot of non-major-brands are cheap as shit, the bearings in the fans go out, etc. But these PC's can easily be imaged from the same images, unliked Windows that has problems when you swap images between different but similiar PCs.
I've never figured out how to get sound to work on an X terminal, since the "Application Server" wants to play sound out
Thinnet sucks to support users. Thinnet should only be used where people can't touch/kick it. I would go for switched 10baseT over cat5, for 100-mbit upgradability.
If anyone has gotten sound to work on an X terminal, please contact me, let me know how
mark@paradise.raleigh.nc.us
Mark
Thought that guy was dead.
Proxy Error The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server. The proxy server could not handle the request GET /site-stories/2001/0823.xterminal.html.
Reason: Document contains no data
Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
I use it to get streaming techno while I work, and it cuts down on my caffeine consumption.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Having perused the article, many of his suggestions like using 10base2 and 386 computers are simply moronic.
He's penny wise and pound foolish.
The author would be a good name to put on a blacklist.. i.e. "Don't ever hire this guy to manage a network."
Except it's that Hemos guy who's marked for a silly, dumbed down article that is not news for nerds, not even news, except for the clueless who would just screw up both theory and practice and badmouth "linux" or perhaps "redhat" and never look beyond the M$ curtain again.
6 865
Furthermore, anybody who wants to promote non-M$ products that seems to think that a sysadmin not having to know or learn anything about "NIS, NFS, DNS, DHCP," etc. is some sort of advantage isn't doing a service to anybody but M$. I'm quite happy with M$ having a monopoly on clueless sysadmins with their three-week cram certs.
Hemos, I look forward to submitting my article to you, "How to Start a Car Rental Company for Peanuts" which describes how to start a car rental company assuming you already have a bunch of cars and can buy previous model year cars for a fraction of what they're worth. (from the watch-out-enterprise-rent-a-car-your[sic if you please]-going-down dept.)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=20869&cid=221
So thanks again, michael. I'm looking forward to you posting two articles I'm working on: "Null Modem Networking" about using PPPD to connect two LINUX COMPUTERS without using ETHERNET! (from the creative-uses-for-db9-connectors dept) and "Look Ma, No Power Supply!" about using BATTERIES to power COMPUTERS without using power from an outlet. (from the no-more-alternating-current-for-me-thanks dept.) Oooh! Cookie for whoever figures out those posers first! Put on your thinking caps, you're in for some brain busting tonight!
AC's cheerfully ignored
Pretty simple, actually. Open up your Sunday paper, pull out a pencil and start drawing. Soon Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy and all the others will have PCs with our favorite Penguin on them.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Just install it on server with Vmware or Win4Lin (server version) people who still need to run windows software can then log to these machines and run in.
In the author's scenerio involving old machines, how could you install such a video card. An old 486 is probably going to have VESA slots at best. No PCI, no AGP... no way to use a modern video card.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
We've got new Dells in my office, and the keyboards suck, plain and simple, and the m$ wheel mouse is not much better. Like you, I'm still using my old keyboard from a 486, still has a nice feel to it.
Run and catch, run and catch, the lamb is caught in the blackberry patch.
Or in a closing time companion. :-)
But seriously folks, the catch in using older hardware is that the motherboard probably doesn't support large enough IDE hard drives for what you have in mind.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
What's the minimum recommended hardware to run a linux based mail server (sendmail)? It would be ultra low volume, about 6 people, tops. If I had the requirement to run Apache (also low volume), now what do I need?
-- Will program for bandwidth
At work, along with some p3 600s, ppro 200s running windows (the ppros are SLOW), we have 2 85-mhz sparcs... they are pathetically slow. However, running everything remotely (netscape, etc) over a 10mbps network works great.... and the server is only about 400mhz. I imagine that extending this to more machines would work pretty well too.
My server
I encourage people to take a serous look at tftp booting an nfsrooted diskless client from a central file server.
I have just recently finished building such a system, where x-terminals were just not sufficient (all clients have a need for a video capture card). While doing the shopping for the clients, I had problems finding a that wasn't _more_ than I needed. There are good reasons to go diskless rather than the central x server option. The first is that the bandwidth requirements for nfsroot is much lower than an xterminal, which must use the network everytime the display changes. Be sure you have enough memory (RAM) allocated to the clients, as you will not want to swap over the network. I just got 256MB sticks in the mail from Rich Pacific at 30 a pop.
The second reason is mosix. The bandwidth that gets saved by nfsroot lets processes migrate to available processors almost without restriction.
The third reason is a pure admin combo. I use bootp which reads config changes without restarting the daemon. So replacing a machine is as easy as dropping in a new box and changing a line in the bootptab to reflect the mac address of the new clients nic. there is no need to worry about software on the clients, since they don't have any that's not on the nfs server.
tips:
i810 motherboards are wonderful, with onboard video and sound, these boards are ideal as long as the clients don't need over 256MB(ram) constantly.
3com has good cards that support netbooting. If you plan to look into this, go to google and search for imggen. This program is required for booting an image from a 3com card (and nothing else will work). The netboot (and possibly etherboot) docs are out of date on this, and i didn't catch this info until I resorted to boot-floppies and read the docs for fai.
fai -- don't use this at all, until you read closely everything that it does. This is a good program(system), but it won't work for you unless you understand it entirely. I personally don't use it, though i use the ideas in it and am currently writing python scripts that handle most of the fai's job.
mosix, mosix, mosix -- if you use debian, mosix has just become aptable, and it works well. If you have a few linux nc's behind a firewall, I seriously implore you too give it a shot, as it has been a blessing. The beauty of it is if you have problems, you can always just
reiserfs -- (or maybe another journalling fs). I beg you NOT to use ext2, as a power outage on the server running nfsroot WILL fsck it all up causing headaches (I learned the hard way, please take my word)
The only real problem with this solution i have had so far is all notroot partitions in the fstab seem to need to nolock option in order to mount. I have set up the server file system so that this is not a prblem, though i like to find a more clean solution.
I hope this helps you. I personally have nothing against 'xterms', but I have found that nfsrooted nc's to be a more generic and plausible option.
;)
I agree with a poster above who said, "get the best monitor and keyboard you can get, then get a thin client."
From what I have seen, the NIC (http://www.thinknic.com) would be more than enough processor and video power for a thin client. This actually may be TOO much power for a thin client: cyrix 266, 64 megs of RAM, 10/100 NIC, speakers, etc. However, it is the cheapest mass-produced computer I know, it has standard hardware, runs linux, etc.
It is diskless, and they have a whole CD full of stuff that you can run locally (netscape, etc. etc.) with the ability for an admin to roll their own distro. This means that you could potentially have most apps run locally (netscape, xmms), except for things you definitely want to run remotely (word processing or whatever). You have the choice. Oh, and it support NFS mounts for storing stuff.
OK, get the user a 19" ViewSonic GS790 (Am in front of one right now, they are sweet).
Give them a choice of a MS natural keyboard or a plain keyboard, their choice.
Give them a MS intellimouse optical. No mouse ball crap. Give the users the option of changing their keyboard/mouse out every year (from use).
OK, according to pricewatch and computers.com (worst case scenario given):
$199 NIC includes speakers)
$350 GS790
$ 35 Natural Pro keyboard
$ 34 Intellimouse explorer
----------
$618 Full package
OK, now let's say that you have only a $1000 budget for each workstation. That means that if you are hooking up 5 people, you can now buy a $2000 server for the heavy work. At this price point, that means SCSI, dual processor (Athlons at least) and multiple NICS. VERY fast machines. OK now say you have *10* people on the network... suddenly you can spend $4000 on servers! The more people on your network, the more powerful and redundant your servers can get.
What are the advantages?
1) Common look and feel. No "big dick" politics of who gets the new computers, etc.
2) thin client means if something is wrong with a particular users's sytem, the first thing you do is replace the system and diagnose later. close to zero downtime
3) no viruses
4) network storage with a decent backup scheme (as good as the admin wants...)
5) you can now afford more stuff.... also, if you REALLY need Windows stuff, you can use the Citrix client on the NIC to run needed windows programs.
6) The user is getting only the best input/output devices available, so their experience is better.
7) Low TCO, but also if 2-3 years down teh road you want new monitors or whatever, it is very cheap.
8) Login from anywhere.
This sounds a lot like the Progeny system's NOW system, already done :-)
question for ya, though. I posted (below as an AC) about using NICs as thin clients. Do NICs have the ability to a) netboot and b) run a MOSIX kernel on the cyrix 266?
If so, then a NIC solution woudl be SOOOO sweet. Basically, just netboot a debian kernel on it, and suddenly you have as much processing power as you possibly need in an organization!
For a company of, say, 20 people, you could have 2 nice servers ($2000 each), 20 NIC solutions (with nice monitors/keybopard/mice ends up being about $600 erach, or total of $12,000), and various other printers, switches, etc. for, say, $3000. So, for $19,000 you have a FULL, really fast and scalabe solution with almost no downtime (between interchangeable NICs and redundant servers).
Oh! think of the processing power you could get!!
Original centralized machines are (believe it or not) cheaper and yes, you can provide Sally the Secretary with a Pentium 133 as an X-Windows station. It's possible to do this.
But as several people have pointed out, just because you can doesn't mean you SHOULD. He makes a poor argument (other than cost) to return to centralized computing and several people have pointed out that, even if we ignore the advantages of distributed computing (there are several), company's are STILL willing to spend the revenue necessary for distributed computing.
In short, cost alone isn't enough.
A better argument would be to point out the advantages to centralized computing that are not cost related (mobile 'desktops', centralized administration (no more GHOSTING!), etc.) However, given management's previous experiences with centralized computing, this isn't likely to be persuasive arguement either.
An argument needs to be found that shows that Linux is cheaper and invokes the use of distributed computing. (The advantages of remote administration is a start - but there's a long way to go.)
Unfortuately, the sparcs can only run in 8 bit. Many apps look terrible. Have you seen Mozilla running in 8 bit? Its theme alone chomps all the colours not to mention the problems there have been with the I-beam becoming invisible. The mere mention of Java or Shockwave is enough to send the CPU guage completely into the yellow.
Also programs that seem fine on a local X seem to update so incredibly slowly they become practily unusable when run posted remotely to the sparcs (Abiword when tyring to wrap text to a new line was guility here but maybe it was just that early build).
Worse still getting StarOffice up and running was nothing short of a nightmare (it would just core dump whenever it was posted to the sparcs). In the end I managed to find an IGNORE_XSESSIONERRORS envvar which let users start it up (with a core dump left behind).
When it comes to defaults for new users there is trouble there too - I installed Ximian to let us run Galeon because Mozilla was too slow. Unfortunately Ximian's pretty installer defaults to using Nautilus which completely overloaded the server when one sesison was running let alone four or five (make it stop! I mean start)... I made a gmc setting but getting rid of Nautilus as the default desktop manager once it's installed itself isn't as simple as it could be. In fact, it simply isn't (yet) all that easy to set up sensible Gnome desktop defaults for all new users - simple things like turning off thumbnail updating is important because when several machines are doing it at the same time it drains percious cpu. Maybe KDE would be better but that seems to run even slower than Gnome.
I've had to eject countless disks remotely because users have put them into the eject buttonless sparcs not realising that they could only access the floppy drive on the server and have then wondered exactly how they get their floppy back.
The idea of using esound turned out to be a stumbling block due to broken esound on the sparcs (I've tired building cross compilers but they never seem to completely work).
I need serious convincing that a bunch of dumb terminals really are better solution. Todays apps need more bandwidth and CPU than ever and when it's being shared out over a compartively slow bandwidth everyone suffers. If everyone stuck to using xterms then it wouldn't be so bad...
Maybe things don't feel so slow on 10/100Mbit networks but people readlily point it out here (why does it take so long to login?) to the extent that I'm undecided whether using NT4 on a PII with 64Mb is actually any worse.
I'm working on something like this at school. We only have 3 computer labs on campus, and there has been a growing interest in Linux but not enough to even set a whole lab dual-booting. Right now, our linux setup consists of a dedidcated p200 server (NFS / NIS / lpr->samba), and 4 machines that dual-boot to Linux. Unfortunately if more than 4 ppl want to use Linux, they're stuck using windows' telnet.
The new lab admin is almost completely clueless about Linux, but interested. He just gave me the go-ahead, and if I can get a get an Xterm setup that sits in UMSDOS and boots w/ loadlin I can get the whole lab running Xterms. And once I've proven it to work, I might actually be able to get some funding from the administration to get a real server, like one of the 512MB/IDE-RAID/SMP machines over in the graphics department. +)
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Take a workable alternative: buy a bunch of near-identical machines from an educational institution or business that's doing an upgrade rollout. Rip the hard drives out, upgrade the RAM, keep a one-line-per-machine config file that maps MAC address onto hostname, IP, kernel/filesystem components to mount for each machine (e.g. different kernel for each network card, different image mounted on /etc/X11 for each video card).
/etc/X11 images mounted in various combinations for thirty machines. Each machine (Digital Venturis FX-2, P2-133) cost $Oz100 (about USD$50) including screen plus $Oz80 each for a 256MB SIMM plus about 30 minutes per machine checking it out and recording the config (total of $Oz5400 ~~ USD2700 plus two full days for the machines themselves plus cables, cabling time, and two 16-port switches for 30 workstations). Swapping via the (CAT5 100MHz) LAN saves a machine from locking up when the user does something dim, but causes it to run slowly to let them know that they goofed).
In my case, I wind up with three different kernels and three different
If you build bitzer machines, be prepared for endless headaches making everything work together. If you use noname machines (and sometimes if you don't) be prepared to discover that not all of those crashes were Windows' fault. <rant>If Mr Trey ``It-Will-Work-Next-Version-For-Sure Oh-This-Blue-Screen-Must-Be-Why-Its-Called-Beta'' Gates had taken the time and trouble to sell reliable, predictable software instead of pushing pretty rubbish out the door in a flurry of false reassurances, the machines we use wouldn't be so crappy: blame for failures would land fair and square where it belongs instead of being masked behind said crappy software and the problems would actually get (ghasp) fixed!</rant>
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
These articles come out and you can lay money its a student or someone in a small shop who has no idea what the needs are in a real Enterprise IT shop. Enterprise shops have mission critical apps running 24/7/365 and need the redundent power supplies, storage systems, network connections and so on that large systems need. The horsepower it takes to handle enterprise app's with 1500 concurrent users. Even for firewalls and such you needs systems strong enought to handle the I/O for a enterprise and efficently handle large rulesets. I'm looking at systems now with RAID memory, so memory can be hot swapped. Work in a shop with SLA's for five-9's uptime and mean it.
Plus aruthors of article like these don't seem to even seem to be monitoring Linux and how system requirements for Linux are creeping up faster and faster. It wasn't long ago Linux was cool because you could use 386 and 486 boxes with 16-32Mb of RAM. I spent time recently talking with Red Hat and everything was 256-512Mb or more of RAM on SMP Pentium III's. Then you talk desptop boxes KDE and Gnome are getting heavier and heavier. Application like StarOffice, and tools like Kylix need lots of horsepower. To make GuI business app's like those typcial on Mac or Windows chew up lots of CPU cycles.
Bottom line when you talk about Linux hardware define your environment and who your users are. What are your SLA's are. Do you even know what a SLA is?
I came accross these little beauties the other day. Sweet looking desktop terminals built to work with a Linux Terminal Server network out of the box. I think it would make a pretty sweet linux box too if you yanked the flash disk and dropped in a HDD and a CD-ROM.
Your Momma.
Or even, specially not in the third world.
The Brazilian (ok, Brazil is not a third world country, but we are far from rich) popular computer project uses a AMD K6II 500 with 64 MB of RAM. Why? Probably because huge projects can not depend on the availability of out-of-line parts.
And the builders of this system agree with your third point also. They made an easy to install stripped down distribution based solely on a stripped down KDE (only Konqueror and KOffice, plus the supporting packges and apps). The workstation is diskless, with a 16 MB flashcard to boot from. All in all, it end up being a nice Internet/Office machine.
I can only agree. I lived through thicknet and thinnet and problems consumed a lot of time. Coax isn't cheap either. Given that in the current enviroment, you can pick up a new 100baset nic for $15 and a 16 port 10/100 baset switch (yes, switch not a hub) from computer geeks for $84. The only circumstance under which I would ever, ever, ever consider thinnet is in an enviroment without the "cleaning lady". Even then, I consider it asking for more trouble. I have long since given my 10base2 gear the heave-ho with no tears. Too many problems that take too long to trace even with a repeater that will partition the bad section. Save yourself a lot of headaches and stay far, far, far away from 10base2.
This entire paragraph is just an attempt to satisfy the "Your comment violated the postercomment compression filter. Comment aborted " message.
I think the article is great. I think it makes perfect sense to admins who are concerned with saving costs.
Of course, I'd probably be fired if I suggested that any of my company's clients "share" workstations. Since most of them are in the business industry, they use their desktop or notebook to help portray their "executive" image. Somehow, I just can't see too many of our clients giving up their laptop for a dummy terminal.
And lets not forget that usually businesses bring visitors through their offices... lots of those visitors are potential customers or partners. NONE of those potential customers or partners is going to appreciate the technical marvel and efficiency of running p75s all around the office. It hurts your image to leave that crap laying around in plain sight, which is why most business managers who want to be viewed as "cutting technology leaders" are so interested in having nice shiny new PCs all around the office. It helps them make more money, and that's what they're all about.
You can argue this til the cows come home, but you might as well be arguing with a brick wall. I've seen the point of view that business execs use, and they certainly aren't successful because they're stupid. On the same level, when's the last time you ever saw a manager show up at work who wasn't dressed to impress? They want P4s, spotless datacenters, and the newest Windows on their desktops. Do they mind if their network admin puts Linux on the servers? nope, because they EXPECT servers to look foreign to them (usually). Enough rambling, I hope I've at least made some of you techno-freaks realize that technology is only a means to an end, nothing more.
Protector of Capitalist views,
Meorah
In any case, Linus must be well on his way.
--hongpong.com
Many companies today structure their asset requirements through leasing, and so having the latest and greatest isn't an issue. Most leased PC's are less than three years old (that is if you use a decent vendor).
Do not try to think outside the box. That's impossible. Instead, realise the truth. There is no box.
Yes. We all have never heard of a priest or any other christian molesting children. You fuck nut. BTW, just in case you call yourself a christian, Jesus was a liberal Jew.
In a corporate environment, hardware costs are negligible. Even saving $500 on 10,000 PCs (5 M$) should be looked at with great skepticism. The problem is most of the PC costs are in support, not hardware. The PC users are paid $15-50/hr. The PC techs are paid ~$25/hr. Everybody costs 2-3x their salary to the company once benefits and overheads are figured in.
Since it takes at least an hour to migrate a user to a new box, the migration alone costs $100-200 right there.
If the cheap hardware breaks or causes the user to otherwise lose productivity (by griping about how slow the box is, or how they have a faster one at home), then the purchase savings quickly evaporate.
But these economics only apply for corporations with reasonable managers. For non-profits, or entities with budgetitis (govts?), then this productivity argument is moot.
3. It gives you pointers, nothing good for someone comming from a windows env. You want a step by step guide, sounding easy a-la-windows install, to make it look simple and straightfoward. That's the big problem with some linux article, the authors knows their systems so well, that they can't put themselves in the shoes of someone that install linux and doesn't know how to access his floppy from the shell because he's used to a:.
What would be great is if someone were to put together a bootable CD iso that had the ability to search for dhcp servers and then Windows domains via SAMBA.
Something any MCSE could download and burn, then drop into any old PC with a nic and a CD drive.
Imagine you're a network admin with not a lot of time, you could hand one of these CDs to any new/visiting employee and just tell them to boot from it and use their normal password.
All you'd need is a Linux box sitting on the network somewhere running Webmin, for the Admin to add users to.
In fact, I'd love to burn such an ISO onto one of those 50MB business card CDs.
I can't be the first one to think of such a thing - I'm heading over now to ltsp.org to see if it's already available...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
I agree with most of the literate posters on this article, namedly that ripping out the 1GHz PIIIs and trying to maintain a pool of swap-meet machines isn't going to get you anything but fired.
But if you're a proponent of the application server model, there's an interesting strategy for transition.
Let's say you have an office full of 500MHz+ P2 or better machines running Windows. Keep them that way, and stop upgrading the desktop. Install some hi-po application servers, and deploy X terminal software.
Then, everyone gets to keep their standalone machines, but the real screaming application performance comes from running X against the server.
To do this right, you need a good, fast X terminal for windows. eXceed is good, but not cheap. Any suggestions for a [f|F]ree alternative?
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
I'm all for making Linux the enterprise standard, and I truly believe that there are a number of cases in which excessive computing power is used where not needed, but this article is a bit extreme. The auther leaves out a number of items which would be necessary to make this system work.
- Monitors. How are we supposed to look at pretty X widgets? Dot matrix printout?
- Network Equipment. A NIC card does not a network make. You are at least going to need some cable and hubs.
- Cost of installing the network. In most places where this solution is viable (small service businesses, order entry, churches), a network infrastructure is not in place. Files are passed on the floppy-net. Running cables on open floor is not an option, as it is an OSHA and fire safety hazard. So you either need to purchase and install raised floors, or resituate your offices.
- Scalability. The author never mentions the target number of users in this model. I can see this system comfortably supporting five users, possibly ten if all the employees need are simple text entry forms, but just try to run three instances of StarOffice and five of Netscape on the network, and watch your 300 MHz server grind to a halt.
- Progress. This system is great... if you believe your companies needs will NEVER change. There is absolutely no room for improvement here. What happens when each clerk must scan a barcode along with an entry? Do we ask the clerks to enter the barcode by hand?
- Customer/Employee satisfaction. No one likes to work on equipment that is known to be out dated and obsolete, even if it works well. That's why high school students bring graphing calculators to algebra courses. It would be very difficult to appeal to potential customers, no matter what business you are in, when you are using a system such as this. The same goes for employees.
The $30 system not only lacks many components, but even when flushed out would be hard pressed to find a viable business for implementation. The wiser systems administrator will allow for future growth, and be sure to catalogue ALL components of the system before making a proposal to management.
I am not sure about the netboot, as I couldn't find enough info on the ethernet card in it. At worst you could boot the kernel from the cd, and use nfsroot for the filesystem. This is the strategy i was going to use before i happened to find imggen. Once the kernel is loaded, the cd-drive can be used as normal. This is not as elegant as a netboot, but it will work. I think that it is unlikely that there is a eth card in it that directly supports netboot, but it probably has a slot where you can insert a homebrew rom. There are instructions and a pcb layout in the netboot package to create a flash rom burner, in case you need one.
,pow, ready to go.
:).
There should also be no problem with running mosix either, as it cares nothing about filesystems (i don't use mfs, just load balancing).
two grand is kind of high for just an nfsroot, bootp server. I am using a 700MHz machine with a 20G drive. Memory on the server, and the clients, is very important. nfsd can eat memory when it's supporting multiple persistent connections. The hard drive needs to have a low seek time, but throughput is less important as the bottleneck is in the network throughput. I only have five clients right now, two more going on this week, and a projected total of twenty by years end. I have been trying to stress the system to the best of my ability, and i feel that the this computer can support 20 clients with ease (with a possible ram upgrade on the server(having enough ram on the server is critical)).
I don't have an online redundant server (don't know how to go aobut setting one up (would really like to know -- please)), but I do have a drop in replacement that stays unplugged until ready for action. The clients are so easy to adminster to, just a quick add/change in the bootptab, a quick copy of root_base To root##, change etc/hosts, hostname, fstab, mosix/mosix.map and
btw, never heard of NOW system, have to check it out. As far as i am concerned, debian is the only way to go when setting up an operation like this.
Important -- don't forget to have eth0,nfs-client,nfsroot, ip-autoconfig built straight into the kernel. Also dont forget to add the ip=bootp|dhcp to the command line options when booting the kernel (I had forgotten, and took hours to figure out what i was missing
Hope this helps
If you are serious about such a network, let me know how it goes. linwiz.curly_a.evalueville.com
have fun
:)
I'd say the opposite is true in a properly set up thin client network. When someone's $100 computer breaks, you throw it out, and replace it with a new one. The data is stored remotely, so there's no need to transfer any files. Just replace with a new system and the user is up and running again. For the server side, you get much more reliability from 10 $100 computers than you do from one $1000 computer. There is a limit, of course, since you don't want to take up tons and tons of space. But again, if the system is properly set up, you throw out the nonworking computer and replace with a standby. If RAID is redundant array of inexpensive disks, I guess this would be RAIPC.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
If you are doing X-terminals you don't spend an hour configuring a new box. You can have a user on a new machine in minutes. That save money in support and user downtime. There are less opportunities for users to screw up their machines because there is no userspace software running on their machine. Everything is on the server where it can be centrally managed. What you are not realizing is that done right there is a substantial reduction in your support costs too. If it makes you nervous to use really cheap systems buy the minimal system you can feel comfortable with. You'll find that under this system you can probably triple the usable lifespan of that system.
"If there is nothing you are willing to die for, then you are not really alive." Myself
I have tried it. I started StarOffice REMOTELY on my home machine from a university pool (on a HP/UX machine with 32MB RAM, that could just barely endure CDE). My home machine is in a dorm that is connected with 2MBit/s that is shared by 400 other people.
It was useable. Sure, you couldn't drag full screen images around but I could scroll down my text just as fast as I could locally. If you switched off the 'show content in moving windows' feature you wouldn't have known the difference.
I even started Win4Lin (www.netraverse.com) remotely once in fullscreen to shock our HP/UX admin. Worked as well (both ;-). Strangely, running Netscape on Win4Lin remotely over a shared 2 MBit/s line was more responsive than running a remote Netscape/Linux natively. I don't know what caused this.
But the fact is that you don't even need the full 10MBit to run a simple office application. Most of the time anyway.
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OK, most people obviously didn't get the part where the cheap clients actually only run an X server and probably use BOOTP too.
Now, here's what the author says about the main server where all the apps will run:
How do I define "commodity PC?" Minimal. Until they see it in action, most people don't believe how well a 200- to 300-MHz machine with 80 to 128 megabytes of RAM will perform. Such a PC easily provides KDE to several users and running applications like Netscape and yes, Star Office, to these users logged in at their PC X terminals.
So, how come KDE runs slow as molasses on my desktop Pentium MMX 200 / 128MB when I am the only user? And all other users of KDE seem to have the same problem.
I seriously doubt the performance of this setup due to this server. I would love to see it work, though. Hopefully the rest of the series will demonstrate this now that the Slashdot community had their braindead flamewars based on the first article.
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
cat
SUN eventually decided that 100-base-T was the only way to effectively deploy that technology.
I used an X-Terminal for about 5 years to develop software. If I ran a local window manager, and did mostly x-terminals it ran smoothly -- graphics and complex GUI's are nowhere near as crisp and responsive. 4 trips up and down a network stack for every mouse click is much slower than anything Microsoft puts out.
Cat: The other white meat
Stop perpetuating the myth that Collisions in an Ethernet environment are anything other than what they are... Normal.
Collisions do not represent an error condition. They are simply a means of resolving contention issues in a non-deterministic environment.
Unless the environment is very large, with a lot of users in a single broadcast domain, the advangates of switching from 10 Mbit shared topology to a 10 Mbit switched topology will hardly be noticed, particularly in the environment described in the article. All of these X-terms will still be in contention for the Server.
If you had a high-end server and a 486 terminal, could you view a DivX movie on the 486? And could you hear MP3s on the 486's speakers? I know most 486's can barely handle MP3, let alone video files. And if the content of a streaming video or audio format was sent over the network, wouldn't that require huge bandwidth? I guess I'm trying to discern what would be the major bottlenecks here.
The article is talking about a level of computing that I would call "Disposible". If you are dealing with terminals in the 300 mhz range, you can buy them in bulk on E-Bay or save them from being destroyed. These computers are out there and they are cheap... dirt cheap.
So if something goes bad, you don't call the vendor. You stick another one in it's place because you could afford to buy ten times the amount of hardware you needed.
What you're missing is that the author was comparing an X-terminal based Linux network with a conventional PC network. Running an office of PCs without a network is no longer possible, you need the network for printing and e-mail.
Thus, complaining about network gear, monitors and cabling is missing the point: both networks have similar needs there, so why discuss it? Maybe the author should have covered it in a sentence somewhere, since not everyone got it.
As for scalability, the X-terminal system is actually easier to scale, since you only have to upgrade the server, instead of an office full of workstations. And UNIX servers still scale better than Microsoft servers.
I don't know if X-terms can run barcode scanners, but I suspect they can. Just another input, like the keyboard and the mouse. You can certainly run the scanner off a serial port.
As for customer/employee satisfaction, how much is having a network that WORKS worth? One where the print queue doesn't randomly crap out on you (or the email server, or the proxy server...). Every network that I have ever been on EVER that ran off of Microsoft servers has been the victim of intermittent recurring failures in its components. They aren't down for long, you just get the reboot-monkeys to cycle the power on the machines, but if each system only fails once a month, that means something is probably going to go wrong every week or so. That's too often.
If you have to give the users whiz-bang to get them on board, buy funky monitors and run a nice theme on the desktops. Hide the PCs under the desks.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
Are they X terminals or Sunrays? Just curious. The server-load for handling a sunray could be higher than that for an X terminal that can drive it's own desktop.
But that's beside the point; of course you can go that approach; but that doesn't solve problems if you require a windows environment.
Also... are you actually running 25 desktops off that sun enterprise 250?
25 instances of netscape? how much memory?
I'm genuinely curious.