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Thin Client Solutions For Libraries?

Posted by simoniker on from the squish-up dept.

phatlipmojo writes "I'm a librarian in the process of opening a brand new small public library from the ground up (literally; we don't even have a building yet). The library director and I are considering our options for public computing terminals. Having experienced the frustration of dealing with Dell machines running Windows XP on a daily basis, we're trying to consider other options, and we've been talking about maybe using thin clients. Have any of you used or worked in a library (or similar environment) that uses thin client stations for public computing? What are your impressions? What are the perks and what are the drawbacks?" "I'm hoping that using thin clients could save us daily time troubleshooting bluescreens^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H computer glitches, allow us a greater degree of uniformity on the public terminals, save us the trouble and expense of putting Anti-virus software, Fortres, and Deep Freeze (or other such utilities) on each machine, and make our machines more difficult for black hat types to mess up on purpose. I'm also hoping we'll be able to offer web access (IE and Mozilla, hopefully. IE at a minimum), Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. And have floppy drives. Plus, it would really comfort me not to pump several hundred dollars per machine into a monopolist's coffers for an OS we're just going to debilitate anyway.

We're in the odd (for a public library) position of money not really being a significant factor in the decision. So, for those thin-client-lovers among you if cost weren't a factor, would you still prefer them to full-fledged PCs?

The other factor here is the tech skills required, because our IT department is me. As librarians go, I'm pretty tech-savvy, but as Slashdotters go, I'm pretty much a luser. So homebrew Linux solutions are really out (plus, vendor support is important for selling ideas like this to the municipal government), but systems requiring basic-to-intermediate networking and troubleshooting skills are in, and I'm not afraid of non-Windows OSes."

87 of 502 comments (clear)

  1. Not a luser! by Hanzie · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ..I'm pretty much a luser...

    Mmmmm. That word 'luser'. I don't think it means what you think it means....

    You're a public librarian. Thank god for you and your kind.

    hanzie.
    --
    ********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
    1. Re:Not a luser! by cliffy2000 · · Score: 4, Informative

      To quote Wikipedia: "In hackish, the word luser takes on a broader meaning, referring to any normal user (i.e. not a guru), especially one who is also a loser (luser and loser are pronouced the same)"
      So she's okay.

    2. Re:Not a luser! by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      She? Who said that phatlipmojo was a she? Not all librarians are women, you know.

      Looks like we could do with losing the stereotypes about librarians as well as the stereotypes about CS students.

      --

      "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    3. Re:Not a luser! by pomakis · · Score: 4, Insightful
      he? Who said that phatlipmojo was a she? Not all librarians are women, you know.

      Wouldn't the use of "he" be just as presumptuous? The English language has flaws, and this is one of them. Since English has no third-person-singular gender-unspecific pronouns, speakers and writers of the english language have only six choices when referring to somebody whose gender isn't known:

      • Use "he/she". This can get very awkward (especially when spoken). E.g.: "Someone across the street bought a newspaper, and then he/she put it over his/her head so that he/she wouldn't get his/her hair wet."
      • Use "they". This is technically wrong because it's a plural pronoun, so in can lead to ambiguity and confusion. However, it's becoming increasingly common. E.g.: "Someone across the street bought a newspaper, and then they put it over their head so that they wouldn't get their hair wet."
      • Use new gender-unspecific pronouns and hope that they'll be understood and catch on. E.g.: "Someone across the street bought a newspaper, and then ey put it over eir head so that ey wouldn't get eir hair wet.". See http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/ for more information on such pronouns.
      • Always assume male. This was common and correct practice in bygone days, but I don't think it's reasonable nowadays.
      • Guess at a gender. This is a variation of the previous point, and is not only more fair, but more likely to be correct. In this case, the person in question is a librarian, and there are more female librarians than male librarians, so why not initially guess "she" rather than "he"? It's more likely to be correct.
      • Avoid the use of pronouns altogether. I think that this option is entirely unreasonable. E.g.: "Someone across the street bought a newspaper, and then that person put it over that person's head so that that person wouldn't get that person's hair wet."

    4. Re:Not a luser! by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Assuming the male form is arguably more scientific than guessing, which is what you seem to suggest should be done. Yes, it's what's historically been done and that's exactly why if you're not sure of someone's gender or want to make a general case using "he" is better than using "she". (Of course, using "he or she" or "s/he" is an alternative, but as you've pointed out it can become unwieldy.)

      (By the way, why is guessing that the librarian in question is a woman right? You could argue that the librarian in question is also a technically-capable Slashdot reader, and that stacks the odds in favour of that person being a man rather than a woman.)

      When you use "she" you're giving readers little doubt that you're referring specifically to a woman. But when you use "he" readers are more likely to appreciate that you mean "he or she".

      To give an example, if I were to say "mankind has reached for the stars", you know that I'm referring to men and women. But if I was to say "womankind has reached for the stars" then that's a totally different meaning.

      Yes, this is a grey area of language. Yes, it's all about personal interpretation and preferences. But momentum is on the side of "he", in this case and in general.

      --

      "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    5. Re:Not a luser! by Fnkmaster · · Score: 2
      The whole concept of the use of "they" as an incorrect gender neutral singular pronoun is somewhat silly. It is frequently used that way in common English speech (at least in the US, in most of the places I've lived), and it conceptually (i.e. linguistically) makes sense. Both "he" and "she" have strong gender connotations in English, and neither feels appropriate for the case of unknown gender. The confusion you reference with they is almost never a practical issue - as in the sentence you referenced, it's conceptually clear that a single person is being referred to, despite the use of the word "they". The idea of constructing and imposing a new pronoun is fairly laughable - you can construct and impose lots of new words and you might have some success, but the baseline words, numbers, basic body parts (excluding euphemisms and sexual references), pronouns, articles and other fundamental words to the language are very slow to change and very resistant to imposed change.


      It would seem prudent at this point, given the clear need for such a word, and the commonplace use of the word they for this purpose, to just accept it as grammatical usage. The word notes on they at dictionary.com are quite interesting on this subject actually, and on the origins of they/them and the modification from the Old English form to the Norse-derived form.

    6. Re:Not a luser! by takshaka · · Score: 2, Funny

      Indeed, they is hardly any more confusing than the second-person pronoun you, which is both singular and plural. The singular they is already an accepted usage in informal settings, and I have little doubt that it will eventually become legitimate for even scholarly usage in America.

      Of course, this means that here in the South we will begin using they as strictly singular with the prefered third-person plural being th'all.

    7. Re:Not a luser! by studerby · · Score: 2, Informative

      BTW, the classic example of a major modern-day language reformation, complete with real language police, was the reformation by decree of Turkish starting about 1930. They switched to the Latin alphabet from Arabic letters, and threw out all non-Turkish borrowed words, replacing them with either historical Turkish words or newly coined terms. There's a book about it for the curious.

      --

      .sig generation error:468(3)

    8. Re:Not a luser! by Merovign · · Score: 2, Funny


      I'd like to take a moment to bring up my proposal from back in the day for a new, all-purpose pronoun to use when ambiguity rears its ugly head. Or is that his ugly head? Her?

      Anyway, recognizing that everyone is very sensitive about these things, I decided to combine three common pronouns, she, he, and it.

      My proposal for a new, generic pronoun:

      s/h/it.

      Face it, it makes as much sense as the other choices.

  2. LTSP for Public Libraries by js7a · · Score: 4, Informative
    LTSP for Libraries HOWTO

    success story

    1. Re:LTSP for Public Libraries by teh0mega · · Score: 2, Informative

      From a personal standpoint, I used LTSP for a classroom at my school, and it worked out great on even 233MHz w/ 128MB RAM. As long as you spend some money for a server, it should work great.

    2. Re:LTSP for Public Libraries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I would highly recommend K12LTSP as a good start. It is easy to set up and configure. The latest release which came out today is based on Fedora Core 2 and LTSP 4.0.1. Although it has not on the K12LTSP page at the moment you can read the announcement here.

      https://listman.redhat.com/archives/k12osn/2004- Au gust/msg00321.html

      All the best with your project

    3. Re:LTSP for Public Libraries by essreenim · · Score: 2, Interesting

      it would really comfort me not to pump several hundred dollars per machine into a monopolist's coffers for an OS we're just going to debilitate anyway.
      Yep, I wouldn't use any non-free OS for it, especially since your requirements are quite simple. Any decent *nix distro would be fine.
      would you still prefer them to full-fledged PCs?
      In a library. Yes. But try not to destroy too much of the flavour of the OS. If customers use the system they may become exposed to Unix/Linux in a favourable way. In other words, lock it down in terms of security but I would try not to lock down the functionality
      as Slashdotters go, I'm pretty much a luser
      If you were a 'luser', your submission post would have been rejected ; )

    4. Re:LTSP for Public Libraries by Aber_Bryn · · Score: 5, Informative

      I've been working at the National Library of Wales developing an LTSP based system for our new Readers Room. We had decided to replace the old full WinNT desktops with LTSP stations served off a 1u Intel Xeon Server running Redhat 9 (for the trial system). I'm currently in the process of setting up the servers for the deployment version (Redhat Advanced Server on the same hardware).
      I personally found the LTSP for Libraries HowTo very useful, after reading it and a day's worth of work in it - our system happily serves Firefox to the terminals.
      You should bear in mind though that serving applications like Office to each terminal will mean quite a lot of your bandwidth being taken up. If its running on the same physical network as the rest of your machines (which it *really* shoudn't be imho) then your staff are going to start complaining.
      As for security concerns... provided the terminals arent served with an XTerm and you restrict the user logged in only to their home directory, firewall off the server and isolate it from the rest of your network (consider sticking it on a seperate V-LAN to the rest of your network) and keep the machine up to date. Then it will most likely be as safe as any other machine on your network.

      Bryn

  3. Perhaps use Internet Cafe Software by Ba3r · · Score: 3, Interesting

    There are quite a few internet cafe packages out there, and there might even be one on sourceforge; combined with linux, I could not think of a better solution for a library, especially when the payment system is used administrate (and ensure that all patrons of your library have equal access).

    Sounds like a great project, good luck!

    1. Re:Perhaps use Internet Cafe Software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      there might even be one on sourceforge


      OpenKiosk


      Quotes from the webpage:
      "OpenKiosk is an open-source multi-platform kiosk system designed for use in libraries, ..."
      "With this delivery, OpenKiosk 1.0 is finally drawing to its completion..."

  4. corrected link by js7a · · Score: 5, Informative

    success story here, sorry

  5. From an old Newsforge article- by thewldisntenuff · · Score: 5, Informative

    As Auger recently wrote in an article for Library Journal: "Our two Linux luminaries, Michael Ricksecker (network specialist) and Luis Salazar (network engineer), created a kernel and resulting user desktop that closely mimic not only the look and feel of a Windows desktop and browser but lack the unnecessary bells and whistles that come with a standard Windows installation."

    Using LFS as a starting point, Luis and Mike were able to build a minimal Linux kernel that included only the functionality required by the "kiosk style" machines. They added the Gnome desktop environment, the Mozilla browser, and OpenOffice.org to complete the picture. They call the new distribution "Lumix."

    Anywho, give that a try --

    Article From Newsforge-
    http://www.newsforge.com/os/04/05/03/1520209.shtml

    LumixTech (link from article doesn't work...give this a try or google it)
    http://www.lumixtech.com/

    Good luck with your new library!

    -thewldisntenuff

    --
    My MythTV HowTo
    1. Re:From an old Newsforge article- by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 4, Informative

      KDE now provides a "Kiosk mode" that is designed to make this kind of locked-down desktop easy to achieve on any distribution with KDE. Here's a recent article on the subject, and here's the project homepage, and here's the KDE guide for sysadmins, which has lots of information useful to KDE server admins.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
    2. Re:From an old Newsforge article- by atomic-penguin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here is the slashdot link:
      http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05 /05/144 1249&tid=103&tid=106

      There is no publicly available cd image of this. You have to contact the authors to get a copy.

      I was going to try this out in one of the computer labs at school. I even contacted one of the author's and got no reply.

      Instead I just did it myself. We had some crappy 200 and 300 Mhz machines for this.

      1. I loaded a bare slackware system with network support.

      2. Put mozilla firefox on the systems.

      3. Unzip the browser.jar for mozilla (Java Archive, compatible with zip).

      4. Hand edit the browser.xul file to disable unwanted features (save to disk, bookmarks, preferences).

      5. Zip the new browser.xul into browser.jar.

      It might sound like a lot of work involved, but there are tutorials on kiosking a browser available via google. It took me two hours at the most to get mozilla locked down and kiosked.

      The hardest thing I had to do was get mozilla to start up in place of a logon manager. Because I tried it a few ways and ended up with nasty infinite loops that don't play nice with init. Beside the point, because you probably want something other than just browser access in your library. What I ended up with was a nice locked down browser in fullscreen mode and nothing else. Which was the original goal to have browser kiosk. Extremely easy to modify mozilla to fit your needs. One alternative I have seen is a 10 headed server (1 server, and 10 screens, keyboards and mice). A turnkey solution with applications loaded, exactly what you are looking for. The downside is a price ranging in tens of thousands, depending on what optional packages you want added.

      --
      /^([Ss]ame [Bb]at (time, |channel.)){2}$/
  6. linux.. by DZign · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Some people already referenced to distros you can use.. so I don't have to do that anymore.

    But as I have some personal experience with this here's my post :-)

    Back in the day when I was studying at university a friend and I both worked a few hours a week in the uni library. They had the same problems you're describing, only on win95 then..
    The computers available could be used to surf and telnet to the library system to search books.
    Almost every week windows had to be re-installed,
    usually because someone messed up some settings, or there was a virus on it, .. (thank god spyware didn't exist back then, I don't want to imagine how bad it would be now :-))

    In the end we just installed linux. The login screen clearly said 'log in as 'guest' with password 'guest' and would then boot X with 2 nice large icons: Netscape and a telnet window to the library catalog. Nothing else was possible.

    For the next 6 months the year lasted, we didn't have to do any maintenance anymore on these systems..

    (bonus for us: we used it as email server too to get personal email out of the uni-system and having a box to telnet from was nice to.. hmm.. experiment a bit)

    --
    Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
    1. Re:linux.. by gbjbaanb · · Score: 3, Interesting

      not this karma-whoring post yet again.

      I refer to the 'it ran windows and was crap, so I installed linux and everything was fine forevermore'. Why do they keep getting modded insightful?

      --

      'Back in 1947, I saw the ENIAC system being deployed, but what a load of rubbish it was. It couldn't do a batch job unless you ran it overnight, needed a whole 16 k of valves to process any of its bloated hide, so one day, while the admins were off standing in a ration queue, I installed linux and KDE, and not only did no-one notice, except to say how much smoother it felt, but it made the country into the economic powerhouse we have today, and solved world hunger too.'

      --

      Please, somebody stop them!

    2. Re:linux.. by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Informative

      There is another step you can do if ou want to control the access and or monitor use.

      look on freshmeat for some of the cybercafe management systems. you can allocate time to a user and it will shut them down at the end of the alloted time. if your library is not busy, this is not needed, but some libraries are very busy and instead of having the librarians police the stations, you can have the computers police them for you so those waiting to use them will get their time at the terminal.

      It worked great for us at a company demonstration of broadband. we had people waiting to "feel the future" so I set up the linux boxes to only allow 15 minutes per user. it worked great and it eliminated the leaches sitting there for 5 hours hogging the access terminals.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  7. I Assume You Are Intending To Use an ILS? by Master+of+Transhuman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If so, go here for the Koha Integrated Library System - an open-source ILS used by several libraries in New Zealand and elsewhere.

    Also go here for the Open Source For Libraries Web site which has links to numerous open source library systems and tools. Including a story on how Arizona State University West moved entirely to Linux as the underlying OS for their library.

    Between those two sources, you should find plenty to check out.

    --
    Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
  8. Personally... by Tuxedo+Jack · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would use Knoppix.

    That's got everything you need on it - it's a full, live-on-CD version of Linux, and it's completely free. Boot off it, glue the CD-drives shut, and you're good. You'd need small hard drives for it, naturally, and quite a bit of memory (~512MB should do fine), but that'd do _very_ nicely for a workstation - KDE, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and a bunch of other things that make a workstation a workstation.

    --

    Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
    1. Re:Personally... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's not so bad a suggestion as it seems..

      Knoppix supports being a terminal client by a simple LILO-command. For better effect, just remaster the original Knoppix to adjust this and some locale data, and the rest would be up to the server, which can be eg. Knoppix or Debian HD-install.

      It's a really fast way to setup thin-clients for sure. Of course, it's a little dirty too, and if you want NX-support, you'd probably have to do some more work. It would be worth it though and REALLY cost-effective. Imagine all you have to do to setup a new client is burn a new CD-R or quick HD-install of Knoppix (the compressed type which is identical to the CD-ROM)?

      Myself, I'd find a similar project to base the work on though.

  9. Sun Rays by trisweb · · Score: 4, Informative

    I know you said that money is less important, but Sun Rays still might be out of your league. I have no idea what they go for.

    Sun Rays are the epitomy of the thin client. I mean, they really are thin. Only like 2 inches thin. They run off a Solaris central server, and have no hard disk or much of a CPU. I use them all the time in my CS lab at UC Berkeley.

    I'm commenting more on the general aspect of the thin client than these specifically, because I think something else might suit your needs better. So let me just say that in a lab of 30 sunrays, they always seemed slow. But then you (probably) don't have freshmen writing C programs with memory leaks and infinite loops that clog the pipes. If you had a moderate number running off a decent server, I'm sure they'd be fine for just about anything you do. Solaris is a pretty standard UNIX environment; you can offer Gnome and KDE and such, and all the applications you described, and they'll work fine as long as people don't expect 3D games.

    But I'd consider alternatives. It all depends on how many systems you want to offer. If it were 5-10 systems, I'd just get cheap PCs and install RedHat or other linux, or an old version of Windows. Then keep a disk image handy so you can wipe them whenever you want. But if you need a lot of workstations, then a thin client might be more economical. Work it out and see.

    --
    "!"
    1. Re:Sun Rays by WebCrapper · · Score: 5, Informative

      I recently did a study on Sun Rays and think I can share some data...

      For 40 Sun Thin Clients with 1 Server: $74,935 (for Library use, you can probably add up to 60 Thin Clients on one server due to usage)

      For 40 Dells (with required antivirus and Ghost):$76,307.28 (with small business discount)

      Upside of thin clients is - no work locally, its all on the server. Good technical support (they answered our test call within 2 minutes) will help out with any issues you can't take care of.

      If you want an 8 page report on the pro's and cons between the average windows workstations and thin clients (as well as 3 PC manufacturers compared to Sun's Thin clients), feel free to email me.

    2. Re:Sun Rays by WebCrapper · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I did a report on your average computer vs the Sun Rays:

      Dell: P4 2.8GHz, 512 memory, 20G HD (5400 rpm), 24x CD, Win 2k, Ultrasharp 19inch Flat panel that is height adjustable, standard keyboard, wheel mouse, bottom line external speakers, DVI-VGA video adapter, mouse pad, no floppy, no consumer anti-virus software, no Microsoft Office offered.

      Cost: $1,797 per unit

      Required Software: 40 licenses each of Norton Anti-Virus ($3,219.65) and Ghost (1,207.63), Corp Editions.

      Full cost: $76,307.28 for first initial order

      Support: A test call to their support line prompted advertisements for spyware removal programs, antivirus programs, network hardware to up sell customers as well as the standard "Your call is important to us." The call lasted 17 minutes before giving up the test call.

      Sun Thin Clients:
      Configuration Details: The SUN thin clients are, effectively, modern dumb terminals. There is no local processing, everything is done on the server side. A representative would need to insert their smart card, used as a username and password, into the thin client and their session would be brought up immediately, right where they left off before. This enables "hot desking", which means a representative can get up from one terminal, walk across the building and sit down at another terminal and begin working where they left off - zero configuration. The thin client works off of a central server, called a SUN Fire, that can house anywhere from 1 to 80 clients, depending on server type and load. These are normally very fast machines that have their memory maxed out.

      The Server runs the only copy of Solaris, so there is only 1 upgrade point and since it
      runs Solaris, it is impervious to roughly 99.9% of the viruses that attack computers. A major benefit is that the SUN Fire server requires, roughly, one System Administrator for 2000 thin clients.

      The Sun Ray 1G Thin Clients do have audio in and out jacks, giving representatives to listen to music over the network. This would require a CD collection somewhere, a network storage server dedicated to music, etc.

      Cost: $359 per unit + SUN Fire server ($12,995 - $29,490) + 19 inch monitors ($1,100 each)

      Required Software: None. The SUN Fire server has licenses for 20 to 40 users using Solaris with Gnome, a Windows like operating system as well as other software package like StarOffice (a Unix/Linux version of MicroSoft Office) and GAIM, a Unix/Linux version of AOL Instant Messenger.

      Required Hardware: The Sun Thin Clients require a monitor. While Sun offers 19inch LCD displays for $1,100 each, the Thin Clients do support any monitor that supports Display Identification Standard (DDC) ver. 1.2 or 2.1. There is more documentation on monitor needs on Sun's website. Other 19-inch monitors that appear to support the standard are priced at $800 to $1,100. I have also noticed that the Sun Monitor appears to support higher frequency ranges (60-80Hz) vs the low end competition. This can help reduce eyestrain for those that can see monitors flickering at anything below 70Hz, such as myself. The Sun monitors also support 1920x1200 with 24 bit color (2d rendering, no 3d).

      Full cost: $74,935 for first initial order

      Support: A test call to their support line was greeted with a simplistic menu. After the menu prompt was picked, a "Southern type" SUN technician greeted the caller after a short wait. Total call time to live rep: 2 minutes.

      Since the library isn't going to actually use them like we would, you can probably run around 60 per server since it would just be a browser and maybe a terminal window.

      Basically, after spending about a week on the issue of workstations for a call center environment, we found that the Sun Ray Thin Clients came out on top and we'll be deploying them ASAP. Hope this helps.

    3. Re:Sun Rays by W.+Justice+Black · · Score: 5, Informative

      ObDisclaimer: I work for the Linux Server Group at Sun.

      I have also worked rather intimately with a few thin client technologies over the years, including SunRay, X Terminals (NCD, e.g.), and WinTerminals with WinFrame (NT 3.5) or MetaFrame (NT4/2k). I run a few SunRay servers today, and have run a 75-user cluster of Win/MetaFrame machines in the past. All of these solutions have their plusses (in fact, terminal services is the one Windows technology I like)...

      There are, however, bits of your specific set of issues that point me at the SunRay for you:

      1. Bandwidth to the clients are not an issue, so no need for the bandwidth saving that ICA gives you (ICA is really quite good over dial-up, e.g.), so that leaves:
      2. Windows compatibility. Since you don't seem to care about running Windows apps, all solutions are on more-or-less even footing.

      If you've got some coin and are willing to spend a little on systems, I'd recommend the SunRay because:

      1. Sessions tied to smart cards. Folks can log in, and wander anywhere in the library with their session tied to (e.g.) their library card. For folks doing combination book/internet research, this is awesome. Folks that haven't tried yet are really missing out.
      2. Soon, you won't be tied to Solaris/SPARC anymore. Sun has announced a port of the SunRay software to Linux, so you may well be able to reuse your existing server hardware. In fact, the beta is available for download here.

      It never ceases to amaze me how many PC techs I know complain about crawling under desks or removing 25 lbs of personal effects to fetch a system so they can swap a dead drive or similar. When I tell them that thin client technology can guarantee them never having to crawl under a desk again (barring wiring or serious catastrophe), they definitely stop worrying about nonexistant 3D performance. Thin-client is an awesome way to go--you might not spend that much less on the machines, but maintenance and client upgrade costs go to zero.

      The downside is no Windows (excepting via e.g. VMWare, Wine, etc.). OTOH, even on Windows Terminal Services you have programs that aren't really written to be run by multiple users on the same machine (even Office gave us fits at times with entries in HKLM instead of HKCU). It's gotten better over the years, though...

      Short version: Even if you don't go SunRay, save yourself a lot of headache and go with a thin client.

      --
      "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
    4. Re:Sun Rays by edunbar93 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The Sun Thin Clients require a monitor. While Sun offers 19inch LCD displays for $1,100 each, the Thin Clients do support any monitor that supports Display Identification Standard (DDC) ver. 1.2 or 2.1. There is more documentation on monitor needs on Sun's website. Other 19-inch monitors that appear to support the standard are priced at $800 to $1,100.

      I've never known a library to use 19" monitors for anything, let alone 19" LCDs that cost 3 times more than the thin client they're attached to. In fact most I've seen use 15" or less (and I recall one library I used to frequent used 13" monochrome VAX dumb terminals, but needs have changed since then).

      The fact of the matter is that we're dealing with the unwashed masses here, not uber multitaskers like call center employees or programmers.

      --
      "No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
    5. Re:Sun Rays by trisweb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This seems blown up slightly -- A library (IMHO) does not need a 2.8GHz 512MB system. What are people going to do? 3D animation? raytracing? Doom III?

      I think a better estimate would be a 1.4 GHz AMD Athlon XP system with 256MB RAM and the bare min for hard disk and other. The monitor you chose also inflated the price a bit. You can get decent 15" monitors these days (either LCD panel, or Trinitron CRT for more savings) for under $300.

      And the software costs for the PCs are horribly inflated as well -- first of all, screw Windows. Install a basic Linux environment on them; there go your unnecessary Norton licenses. Use Gnome (or KDE), Firefox, OpenOffice, and a terminal for the Library and you're all set. If you're going to do a price comparison, at least bring the PCs up to the same level as the UNIX sunrays.

      Cost per unit: about $600-$800
      Total cost: around $30,000

      Hmm, significantly less. I don't know if it's just me, but it seems convenient that the sunrays beat out the PCs by only about two grand. Maybe for a call center environment you need the extra horsepower on your PCs (which is ironic, because you chose sunrays instead) but I doubt it. Aside from maintenance and support, the PCs are definately cheaper for the library.
      --
      "!"
    6. Re:Sun Rays by Upphew · · Score: 2, Insightful

      One word: Support. I'm not sure what kind of support Dell offers for thin Linux clients, but I'm quite sure that Sun has better support and much more experience on thin clients.

    7. Re:Sun Rays by mleopold · · Score: 5, Informative

      I work in the Computer Science Department at the University of Copenhagen (DIKU) and our undergrad and grad student labs are made up of SunRay stations (I guess about 120 of them or so). They are run by 3 fairly slow SunFireV440 and require a number of application servers that can handle the load - in our case that is a pile of cheap Linux-boxes. With an LTSP solution you might be able to get by with fewer application servers as LTSP is able run applications locally.

      The setup performs well for most tasks that our studens perform: browsing, compiling, emacs, lyx, etc. However getting audio from the application on a different server through the network into the V440 and finally to the earphone plug on the terminal is a challenge - and ofen more than the SunRay servers can handle.

      They require very little attendance from the administrator - except for hardware failures everything can be handled remotely.

      I don't know which prices you used for you calculations, but Sun just announced that SunRay software should be on the way for Linux which should bring the price on the servers down substancially.

    8. Re:Sun Rays by WebCrapper · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've gotten too many replies to respond to each one individually.

      The above post was cut and pasted parts of a report that I did for a company I'm working on getting funded.

      The PC's need to be able to last at least 3 years in a call center environment before being passed down. While I agree that a library doesn't need this much power, if they went with it, they could probably get 5 years+ out of them without a problem. The need for 3+ years is due to cost of replacement. The other thing is, power for the reps. I'm an ex-technical support rep and have grown long tired of IT groups trying to reuse old machines. Too many applications to run, too many browser windows for different tools costs time to help customers. If the info isn't in front of the reps within 2 to 3 clicks, its too slow in my opinion.

      Someone brought up an opinion on the SUN LCD's - they where priced as a package, not as a solution. Again, this was a report about the boxes, not monitors. The bulk of the sun price is actually the monitors. We could bring the price down a heck of a lot by choosing new ones. I'm also not pricing low end LCD monitors because in most instances, you get what you pay for. I need a monitor that can remain on for hundreds of hours at a time.

      The reason for 19 inchers - reduced eyestrain. I've worked on 15's, 17's, 19's and a 21 inch screen. 19 was perfect. Some people can have lots of deskspace, others can have font the size of lego bricks if they want it.

      "Aside from maintenance and support, the PCs are definately cheaper for the library. Which proves you (and most other slashdorks) just don't get it. Do you really (and I mean really) think that the cost of a solution is the purchase price of the equipment (hardware + software)?? Did you consider the maintenance of 40+ individual machines vs. 1 server? A sun ray deployment (even on Linux when this becomes available - if you absolutely MUST use Linux somehow, somewhere) is perfect for this." ---- exactly.

      "Full cost: US$54,858, wich is 70% of your original price, not including volume discounts." -- I was going off of the Dell website at the time for that particular price. I also went off of Gateway and Compaq/HP - Dell was just what I chose to post.

      "Symantec Corporate Anti-Virus: 50 licenses - US$1818 [symantecstore.com]" - I actually didn't see this on their website. I used their wizard which gave me the exact amount for 40 licenses instead of just giving me 10 extra for a discount - figures. Something to update.

      The main thing here is that, in all situations that we could think of, the Sun Rays fit our needs better than PC's. We even considered building our own PC's for this situation. The bottom line is, if we want to be ultra affordable, we can get Windows boxes for around 40k'ish if we try, but then we need to hire IT types to handle the problems, that happen - its just not worth it to us.

    9. Re:Sun Rays by nodrogluap · · Score: 2, Informative

      Specifically regarding library setups there are a few key points that make the SunRay stand out. A few of these points have been mentioned, a few have not.

      1. They don't make any noise at all (no fan or disk), which is nice for a library.

      2. Generally, you don't need to lock them down, because there isn't a black market for hot SunRays (though this might change with a Linux version of the server available)

      3. By far the best feature, as mentioned before, is the smartcard. We exclusively use SunRays at work, and I can go over to another person's desk and plug in my card to show them what I'm doing, etc. A user could move about the library and not have to keep their jacket on a chair to call dibs for a computer. This makes more terminals available at any given time.

      4. You will save money on electricity with the SunRays. They produce little heat, and if the power goes out, as long as the server has a UPS, all the terminals will come back right where they left off. This means you could turn off the breakers for the computer circuits after hours.

      5. We haven't had any audio issues, because we're doing all of the processing on the server, not farming it out to other machines. And the headphone jack is right in the front (along with the mic, the only plugs in the front), so it's easy for users to plug in headphones so as not to cause a disturbance for the other library users.

      6. The SunRay itself takes up almost no room, so you don't need to buy fancy desks with a sling for the tower, or resort to sitting a tower on the floor, where users get their feet into them. Just sit the SunRay on the desktop next to the monitor (3"w x 11"d x 12"h on my desktop).

      7. Although I have not used this part of the server software, there are many options for anonymous login, registered login, max time, etc. so you can design and enforce an access policy easily.

    10. Re:Sun Rays by WebCrapper · · Score: 2, Informative

      I normally don't feel a need to justify my decisions, but I figured I might as well since so many people where interested in this. While he made the point, I didn't inflate the price on purpose and I admitted that.

      1. Didn't know about the 50 licenses for Norton. I'll correct that as soon as I can dig out of my email.

      2. I didn't bloat the price of Norton to justify it. In my report, I priced PC's that where less than half the price of the Thin clients but still suggested the Thin Clients based upon a few things.
      - Less power consumption and noise (probably the smallest bonus - also helps in case of power failure, more reps still active)
      - Easy access to move across the network without having to drag the profile and personal stuff (email) across it with you.
      - Extra security by allowing the smart cards to be used as employee badges
      - Less of a need for IT staff (biggest money saver)
      - Access to support. I don't need my staff to spend 20 minutes on staff to explain why they need an RMA number.

      3. Dell has lowered the price since I've written this report (approx 3 weeks ago). I reconfigured on Dells site just for grins and the outcome was about the same. I also chose the SX270 due to its small footprint, therefor, I don't really want a full desktop taking up floor space or a CRT monitor taking up desk space.

      Oh, and one last thing. I did the report for a company where I'm sharing the decisions on the support floor. I have two other people that share this responsibility and they are not your average CTO or manager types - they can read for themselves and do the same research everyone else did to make sure I was correct. I honestly went into this report thinking about desktops running FreeBSD or RedHat - changed my mind when I thought about the Sun Rays after awhile.

  10. Money Not a Factor - Use Citrix by azadism · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you have the money for Citrix, they provide a great thin-client on option where with the hardware you can put Linux on the client and have put straight into Citrix. 99.99% of the users will never know the difference.

    --
    Daily Shenanigans
  11. EZLINK by IronMagnus · · Score: 2, Funny

    ...just use the EZLink internet terminals from Pantheon.. if Adam west endorses it.. it must be good!!! :(

  12. How about a nice friendly Mac? by furball · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It works.

    If you've attended the Apple stores they have Macs sitting around for people to interact with and even though a good deal of the interaction is unsupervised, nothing destructive happens with the box and life is relatively good.

    1. Re:How about a nice friendly Mac? by Tokerat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      they refreash the hd's everynight. They have custom scripts for it.
      ...which is exactly the type of thing that would be perfect for a library! If you want to get really cheap, x86 running Linux can do just the same, but isnt' as user friendly. (No, sorry, it isn't. Linux has come a long way but nothing X11 beats OS X.) Even if a machine was tampered with durring the day, at 9PM while and janitors are vacuuming away the terminals (Macs or otherwise) can be humming along restoring themselves (and in the process keeping the janitors from looking up porn). Mac IE renders mostly everything just fine but ActiveX sites are completely useless (but let's face it, most sites that use ActiveX won't be nessesary for library research...at least not any I can think of). Firefox and Safari are both very well done browsers as well, I haven't come across a page yet that either of them can't handle, although Safari has some quirks with full-page Flash sites...
      --
      CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
    2. Re:How about a nice friendly Mac? by hcdejong · · Score: 4, Informative

      And maybe use NetBoot for centralized administration, which should make it easy to reset the clients to a default state.

    3. Re:How about a nice friendly Mac? by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Um, the guy said that "IE was a minimum", that's IE for Windows not for MacOS - they are totally different and IE for Mac can't render all the pages IE for Windows can.

      Let's assume the poster is serious about their requirements. If you're just going to ignore hard customer specifications like "must run IE" then feel free to post but it will be ignored by the people actually doing the work (ie, them).

      If you read the whole post it seems the only two systems that'd do what (s)he needs are:

      1) Windows Terminal Services

      2) Some form of Linux/LTSP with a copy of Wine/CrossOver Office Server edition to run IE and MS Office. CodeWeavers sell a version of Wine specifically kitted out to run thin clients, because it's massively more efficient than Citrix/RDP-type solutions.

      It rules out anything based on "pure" open source because of the IE/MSOffice requirement, probably anything Linux based is ruled out on the grounds of staff availability and familiarity, and I'm afraid Mac is definitely ruled out. Sorry.

    4. Re:How about a nice friendly Mac? by ischorr · · Score: 2, Informative

      Really? How many? ...Having spent a lot of time on the Moz Tech Evangalism team, I'd have to say that the number of websites that aren't standards-compliant enough to be viewed by Mozilla is well below 1%.

      There are definitely still sites that are incompatible with Mozilla. However, unless there are specific sites that you need that are incompatible (usually sites that require ActiveX, which for Windows there's at least an ActiveX plugin for Mozilla), this "incompatibility" thing just isn't a good enough reason anymore. And if people start to use Mozilla (or other non-IE browsers), most of the leftover web sites will come around...

  13. Thinstation by Errtu76 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Thinstation is a 'distro' that i'm currently using at work (a hospital). It can be used to connect to Citrix, RDP, VNC, Unix, Telnet/SSH, or (with the help of fluxbox/icewm) as a lightweight standalone linux workstation (with an optional FireFox package). The people on the mailinglist are VERY helpful as well, so you don't need to worry about support when you've a problem.

    I can really recommend it as a thinclient solution.

  14. Hmmm... by Combuchan · · Score: 5, Funny

    phatlipmojo writes "I'm a librarian ..."

    Funny. When I was a kid librarians were named Ann, Phyllis, or Doris.

    --
    "[T]he single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom." -- Barry Goldwater
  15. Thin Client Resources by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are plenty of resources for thin client computing in a library environment.

    I would start by checking out the case studies that are listed at citrix.com. One immediately comes to mind: http://www.citrix.com/site/aboutCitrix/caseStudies /caseStudy.asp?storyID=13818

    Incidentally, the man in question here runs a little site by the name of http://www.thethin.net/. It is hands down, the number one resource for thin client solutions on the web. Join the list and listen in for a while, I guarantee you'll learn more about terminal server and thin clients during the first week on this list than you will learn in any classroom.

    Good luck to you!

  16. Here they use Sun terminals by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    At my university (http://www.kuleuven.be/) the library uses Sun terminals. Searching for books can be done online from your dorm or from one of the netscape browsers running on the Sun thingies.

    The Sun computers look very sharp, are very small and are all accompanied by a LCD display. They run some sort of Linux-Unix like OS.

    There is also StarOffice installed on all computers so you can type something and mail it to yourself

    The books themselves have RFID tags on them (or something like that, the building knows when you take a book) and you have to enter/leave by using your University ID card

    1. Re:Here they use Sun terminals by 0x0d0a · · Score: 2, Funny

      The Sun computers look very sharp, are very small and are all accompanied by a LCD display. They run some sort of Linux-Unix like OS.

      I'm waiting for that guy posting all the pro-Sun stuff to see this and gag. ;-)

      --
      May we never see th
  17. Re:thin client impressions by stoborrobots · · Score: 3, Informative

    You do realize that a thin client is not a slimline desktop, don't you?

    A thin client is one with little or no computing power... Just a screen, keyboard and mouse, give or take...

    A slimline desktop is one where you "pay more to have all that computing power stuffed into a smaller case."

    OTOH, maybe IHBT.

    --
    "Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
  18. IE requirement? by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm also hoping we'll be able to offer web access (IE and Mozilla, hopefully. IE at a minimum)

    How much would the administration be willing to budge on the IE requirement?

  19. ComputerBank have done this in an Aus Library by tpgp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The great mob of volunteers down at Computerbank (a charitable organisation that refurbishes used PCs to run linux and be donated to community groups & individuals) have implemented a thin client system running linux at the Footscray Library in Melbourne, Australia.

    Done for virtually no money- and plenty of the users prefer the interface to the more complicated windows systems running along side it!

    Read their white paper and (if in Melbourne) go down to the Footscray Library (56 Paisley St, Footscray) and check it out!

    --
    My pics.
  20. Real answers... by wcdw · · Score: 4, Informative

    Lots of people talking about 'how-to', but nobody really answering your question. Typical slashdot...

    The advantages of thin clients in this type of environment are many. It's almost impossible for a user to screw up what is effectively nothing but a terminal.

    Downsides would include the need for a more expensive server on the back-end, as all the horsepower now has to reside in one place. Also, when the server dies, _everybody_ dies.

    And if you use commodity hardware for the thin client, it can be harder to lock things down on the client end. General rule of thumb is NO drives of any kind with the client configured to boot across the network.

    Many people have suggested the SunRay, and it's hard to argue with that - it's one of the first thin clients that's really usable (IMHO).

    http://www.theboyz.biz/ Computer parts & more!

    --
    If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
  21. eMacs by panurge · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If you have the room. Their downsides (very heavy single box solution) become virtues when the general public is concerned. They are hard to move, hard to steal, and - this is very important - can withstand abuse like an LCD can't. The keyboards are robust, you canuse ordinary cheap USB mice, the screen is bright and clear.
    The design, with all the vents at the back, makes it hard for kids to try dropping paperclips and so on inside.

    The only thing missing is the floppy drive, and I'd question whether that really is "missing". There are several workrounds if someone really needs floppy access.

    SunRays are a good idea in more controlled environments but, at the end of the day, you still need physical terminals for the users. Terminals designed for use in uncontrolled environments tend to be expensive and not particularly state of the art as far as display type goes. I still think that most people still underestimate how well the eMac is designed for its environment.

    --
    Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
    1. Re:eMacs by bobo+the+hobo · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I helped set up an emac lab in my school's library. They're pretty good, OSX is great for restricting things down to being able to configure open-firmware to not boot from CDs without a password. Only real problems were kids stealing and breaking mice.

    2. Re:eMacs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I agree totally. Emacs is the perfect choice. Surely in this day and age everybody ought to know at least the basics like C-x C-f, C-x C-s etc. Web surfing can be done easily through w3m and as for mail users can bring their own .gnus files.

      As you mention, emacs does need quite a heavy box to run though, but you can gain better performance if you run emacs in a nice 80x25 terminal.

  22. Here's how to do it. by kinki · · Score: 3, Informative
    1) get a server, Raid1, 1G+ memory, gigabit ethernet. ie. the usual stuff.

    2) install mandrake linux official 10.0 on it

    3) install ltsp 4.1 http://www.ltsp.org/ on top of it

    4) get a load of old PC hardware (everything up from pentium goes, all you need is a non s3-grahic card and one spare pci-bus)

    5) rid the PCs with all moving parts (leave the fans though...)

    6) get pxe-booting network cards for the clients (100mbit is fine, via-rhine for example)

    7) fire up.

    if you want to do it with new hardware, just buy some via epia+case combos =)

    Mail me for more details - I can also do the actual job if being paid =)

    --


    ++K

    <[letter kay][at][number seventy seven][dot][finnish TLD]>
    1. Re:Here's how to do it. by julesh · · Score: 2, Interesting

      4) get a load of old PC hardware (everything up from pentium goes, all you need is a non s3-grahic card and one spare pci-bus)

      5) rid the PCs with all moving parts (leave the fans though...)

      I've found you can run anything up to a pentium 200MMX without a fan, if you have a large enough heatsink. And as the CPU cooling fan is _always_ the first component to fail in every computer I've ever put together, this is an important consideration.

  23. Re:thin client impressions by JVert · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The world has trolled you.
    Renember when we used to call thin clients "dumb terminals"?

    Then they seemed to be uncool.

    Now they call them "smart displays". Still uncool mostly.

  24. Tarantella by canadiangoose · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I'm not a big fan of Windows, but there might be a good, cheap Windows solution that fits your needs. Remember SCO before they turned evil? They are still in business, but they have changed their name to Tarantella, and they sell this excellent product called 'Secure Global Desktop' (Yes, the name sucks) that works with all sorts of thin clients, from old Windows machines, to Linux, to new Wyse terminals. It requires a copy of Windows 2000 installed as a terminal server, but it's really, REALLY easy to use, and it's about half the price of Citrix. It's easy to add servers at any time to improve performance or uptime, and it's flexible enough that you could probably run the entire library system off of it, not just the public terminals.

    I have to connections to Tarantella in any way, and I dislike Windows, but I must admit that this is a very good option.

    --
    Never eat more than you can lift -- Miss Piggy
  25. K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://k12ltsp.org/

    K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project
    Perfect for what you're looking for and already in use in various schools and libraries.

  26. requirements are contradictory and a bit confusing by Vellmont · · Score: 5, Insightful


    I'm also hoping we'll be able to offer web access (IE and Mozilla, hopefully. IE at a minimum), Word, Excel, and Powerpoint....

    it would really comfort me not to pump several hundred dollars per machine into a monopolist's coffers for an OS we're just going to debilitate anyway

    So you don't want Windows, but you want IE, Word, Excel and Powerpoint? I think MacOS has the office programs, but unless you want to run the ancient IE5, you're SOL.

    I'd personally try to push you away from supporting a lot of apps outside of just plain-jane internet access. Supporting the apps is going to be a pain in the ass, and people are going to be taking up lots of time writing term papers, etc when others just want to check their email.

    I really think you need to step back and look at what you really _need_ the system to do. From the details you've provided it doesn't seem like you really have a good grasp about what you want to provide, what your maintenance requirements are, etc.

    Thin client is a nice buzz-word, but it doesn't have a huge amount of meaning. Does each client have a HD, or only minimal boot-roms? What about if the central server goes down, any thin-client won't be able to restart.

    Hire someone that actually can help you with these problems and analyze the requirements, do research, etc. Slashdot can provide you with very raw information, but it really sounds like you need someone with more tech experience to analyze your situation.

    --
    AccountKiller
  27. If you're looking for thin clients... by shfted! · · Score: 2, Funny

    If you're looking for thin clients at the library, I'd suggest keeping lending lots of books on diet and exercise.

    --
    He who laughs last is stuck in a time dilation bubble.
  28. morphix derivative - by Seraphim_72 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There is a morphix derivative that is a pure kiosk style Firefox. Currently I am trying to remaster it a bit, not doing so well, but that is me and how little time I have put into it, and thae fact that I want it locked down hard. Oh - here look toward the bottom for the firefox iso.

    Sera

    --
    Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
  29. LTSP, with support! by Delusional · · Score: 2, Informative
    Check out disklessworkstations.com. It's run by the guy(s) who developed LTSP; they have several years of experience now setting up and maintaining thin-client setups.

    There is no justification for ever installing full-blown PCs in this kind of environment. (No, I don't work for or with these guys, I just have way more experience than I ever wanted administering extensive networks of independent PCs in environments where the cumulative equivalent of VT's Big Mac was brought to bear on tasks that cumulatively required roughly a dual P4). Web browsing, word processing and the like require almost no processing power. Unless your users are creating/editing/transcoding audio or video, compiling elaborate programs, or doing deep data searches on local data, the computing power is wasted.

    Not to mention the time wasted on cleaning up after clueless users (in a properly configured thin client environment users are only users, not manipulators, of the core operating environment), keeping up with the latest patches, x number of software/OS "up"grades instead of one (and the requisite hardware upgrades - two, three years down the road, instead of replacing a library full of obsolete machines, you replace one, and keep your clients),... I could go on, but /. comments aren't supposed to be books, so I'll stop.

  30. 15", 17" versions too by daBass · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Don't forget Sun has Sun Ray clients with either a 15" LCD or 17" CRT in an all in one design too at $1049 and $659(!) respectively. That's a big savings on 40 of these and for a library more than adequate

    The smart card is not a requirement either. You can simply log in (as guest if you like), you just don't get your hot desking. This brings the possibilty of giving regular users a real account with some space for documents as well and it keeps their settings. Guest logins are trivial to revert to "standard state" every time they are logged off too.

    You don't get IE but that only disables a small amount of websites that due to their stupid reliance on IE don't deserve your custom anyway.

  31. Not all expenses are software by ikeleib · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Don't forget to pick hardware that won't require lots of care. My suggestion is to get one of those VIA fanless jobbers and net boot it. That way, there's no fans do die, no hard drive to die, and no noise to disturbe library patrons.

  32. It rules out anything by guet · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And why would IE for Windows be necessary (or even desirable)?

    If a standards compliant browser (Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE for mac, IE for Windows (almost)) can't browse your web pages, you have a problem with the web pages, not with the browser.

    Perhaps it's time to step back and question those assumptions, after all, they're not even at the building/buying stage. Choosing IE for Windows is basically choosing windows, which as you point out, makes the question almost a non-question - they may as well go back to continual problems trying to keep the systems up, up to date and hardened, which is precisely what the poster wanted to avoid.

  33. Works nicely now. by ciryon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have some experience of setting up Netbootet Macs. Prior to 10.3 it was hell, but now it works nicely. If you can afford it, buy some iMac TFT's and remove the harddrives.

    With NetBoot you can add software to all machines on the fly and the new Apple Remote Desktop 2 has loads of features, including VNC support so you can monitor the machines from your PDA while you relax on the beach. :)

    It's also easy to set the machines in kiosk mode where they, say, only can access a web browser - or whatever you want your visitors to use.

  34. Sun Rays - silent but deadly by ChrisRijk · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sun Rays are dead silent (no moving parts), very low power (20W) which also saves you on air-con, last forever, require no maintenance on the client side, are very secure (air traffic control for Air Force One is run off a network of Sun Rays) and easy to setup.

    Version 3.0 of the server software also runs on Linux. V3 is also bandwidth efficient enough that you can deploy over broadband or a group over 10Mb Ethernet.

    As for how much they cost, on modern hardware the main thing to bear in mind is the amount of main memory you have. Sun have a sizing guide to help. For lightweight usage, eg a library, they suggest you can run 40 clients off a server with 4GB of main memory.

    So 40x Sun Ray 1g = $359 * 40 = $14.4K (re-use monitors from your existing systems). On server side, a Sun Fire v20z with 2x Opteron 250s and 4GB of memory is $7k, though you could get a model with slower CPUs and pay for more memory. As a library, you should be able to get an educational discount too.

  35. Just My opinion by EightBits · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have read a lot of different definitions of what 'thin clients' are in this thread. Actually, they are all right and wrong. 'Thin client' has quite a few definitions and the definition that applies to you depends on your appliction. For this application, I think we can assume that 'thin client' means a computer without a natively installed OS. In reality, what you want is a standard run of the mill PC for each terminal. There is no need to get exotic towards either end of the spectrum.

    For arguments sake, lets assume you want 5 terminals throughout your library. If money were no object, I would order 5 standard PCs from your favorite computer manufacturer (this could be a big dog like Dell or HP or a local computer store.) The only things you want to pay special attention to are warranties. Get the best warranty you can get your hands on. Not to be an advertisement for Dell, but they do have a nice 4year/4hour on site warranty. Once you call in a hardware problem, within 4 hours there will be a tech there to work on it and they'll do this for 4 years. That's hard to beat. One nice thing about buying a standard PC instead of one designed to be the minimum thin client configuration is that if you change your mind later, you can always use a non-thin client solution. I would also consider buying an extra PC. Depending on how busy your terminals will be, you may not get enough time on one of them to update your deploy image. You will need to do things like perform virus scan updates and apply security patches and bug fixes. If taking over a terminal every once in a while is no bigge, don't worry about the extra PC.

    Once you have your 5 terminals you should set them up with the standard OS and software you intend to support. I see a lot of Linux suggestions here and Linux could very easily pull it off. But, for a public library, Windows will easily work as well. It is really up to you and which OS you want to support. Whatever you do, make sure you have Mozilla, an office suite, and a virus scanner. If you run Linux, this should be Open Office and if you run Windows, it should be open office AND Microsoft Office. Once you have decided that, I think the idea of bootstrapping over the network is a good idea, but there are other options. Wether you choose Linux or Windows XP, both are capable of firewalling and you should definitely use that feature on the clients and it probably wouldn't hurt to have a firewall protecting your entire building too. But that's just my paranoia kicking in.

    First, the drawbacks of net bootstrapping. If you do this, you will either be loading an entire OS and it's apps onto the client hard drive which would take a long time and every reboot of the machine would have that minimum as a downtime. Or, you could just load the base OS onto the machine and have all the apps installed on a server via a mapped drive. This would require less downtime at boot, but your network and server become single points of failure for your clients and you would have long application load times. I would recommend a daily reboot. If you do this when the library opens, then the downtime is not a problem. I would snag the whole OS over the network. This way, regardless of who walks in and out of your library, at least once a day you have cleaned up their messes and you will only have to maintain a single deploy image for all of your terminals. Also, if a computer has trouble and you are too busy to spend time troubleshooting or if you're out and a non-techy person is there, all that is needed is a reboot to take care of the problem.

    There are a couple of things to keep in mind. I assume your computer will be capable of searching some sort of database to let patrons search for books and what not. If this is so, you might also want to consider having the terminals have their own databases that snag a copy of the database data from the server at boot time. Every 15 minutes or 30 minutes or so, the clients can request updates. This way, you still only have to u

  36. Re:Limux? by thesp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A word like that is called a 'portmanteau' word. It's got a nice story behind it; like 'chortle', it is one of the many words that Lewis Carrol, author of Alice in Wonderland, added to the language.

    See Wikipedia and this site for more details.

    I love the English language...

  37. Re:Someone wrote a distro.... by matth · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While not specifically for libraries check out
    http://www.k12ltsp.org

    We currently use it at work on the Tech Floor, and it runs great... I can't remember the last time I replaced a hard drive in a machine.. oh wait I haven't... cause they all run off the server =) BLAH! Nightmare when each machine ran seperately.. replace hard drives, format, etc.

  38. Howard County Library, Maryland by msonic · · Score: 2, Informative

    The articles:

    http://os.newsforge.com/print.pl?sid=04/05/03/1520 209
    http://www.libraryplanet.com/2004/05/lumixis
    http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA4060 08

    are about a distro based on "Linux From Scratch" that was specificly created for public access terminal use in a library. It has been deployed and is loved by everyone, the public and library management included. I have not used it myself, I heard about it at a user's group meeting. You might want to contact the author and get a copy. ljsalazar(at)comcast.net The project website http://www.lumixtech.com/ seems to be down.

  39. Re:requirements are contradictory and a bit confus by richardljohnson · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I am a Network Administrator for a medium size city Library. We currently use Dell's with XP and all the 'bell's and whistle'...including the essential Deep Freeze. I am looking at Terminal Services with either Linux or MS. Wyse Technologies (formally Netier) does offer thin clients and if I remember right they can offer terminal service through these. From my experience Linux IS morse secure but you will have a greater learning curve if not phobia from patrons..and staff alike! Good Luck! Richard-

  40. Guard/restore cards by You+Don't+Know+Me · · Score: 2, Informative

    A library I worked with a couple of years back used windows with a restore-on-reboot card. They'd get hit with a virus, or some other bad thing would happen to a system, but they could bring the system back to a known state by turning it off and back on.

    Not the be-all answer (no fun if you have to restart XXX times a day) but in conjunction with not-too-frequent patching (weekly?) and a decent anti-virus package it can be good.

    Also handy for getting rid of content/screen savers/other unwholesome content that a user might download.

    (I'm not a fan of windows, just relaying an experience)

    http://www.juzt-reboot.com/
    http://www.hddguarder.com/

  41. Done That - 7 Times and Counting! by ELBnet · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have created a customized LTSP installation for libraries that is currently running in 7 public libraries. The system provides Web browsing and an Office Suite with timed sessions, print management, use statistics, floppy disk access, filtering (or not!). You can see one example install here

    The system is completely GPL, requires no special hardware and I am currently working on an automated install system to make installation easier. If you are interested I can give you the email addresses of the directors that are using the system if you contact me: pete at elbnet.com.

    --
    -- I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken
  42. Avoid Dynix by rueger · · Score: 2

    All that I can say is avoid software from Dynix. Our local Hamilton Public Library, usually a superb outfit, just moved all of their catalogues to Dynix systems and it has been a total disaster.

    The terminals in the library are very, very slow to respond, and for the first month the search funtion only worked about 10% of the time.

    Talk to them before buying Dynix to find out what went so wrong.

    --
    Three Squirrels
  43. Cheap thin clients by Alan+Cox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes but if you instead get 40 little epia boxes with no disk just a CF card, and a server its much cheaper. If you recycle old PC's as thin clients it gets very cheap indeed

  44. Koha Open Source Library System by markbasedow · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sorry this is not directly related to Thin Clients for libraries, but I had to mention it anyhow Koha - Open Source Library System http://www.koha.org/ It is an excelent open source library management system that should recieve more attention

  45. Macs with Netboot! by filmguy1105 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've set up this kind of system for a number of local non-profits specifically because they don't have an IT department. It works great. After you set it up it just works. If a client starts acting funny, you just restart it and it gets a brand new copy of software. You can configure how much access users have to software. You can make different rules for different users or different computers if necessary. It's really stable. The ones that I have running right now are up from security patch to security patch. Also, each Netboot server can handle up to 50 clients. So with an education discount, a G5 with the OSX Server and 50 eMacs will run you about $40,000.

  46. Kiosk Admin Tool in KDE 3.3 come August, and... by leonbrooks · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Mandrake Terminal Server available since, I think, 9.0. If you're running audio, video or just lots of screens, go for "diskless fat client" mode rather than "thin client" mode; NFS + Linux's caching makes the network bandwidth much nicer that way, and lots of things like plugging in USB thumbs, cameras or PDAs are easier to manage.

    If you want to charge for it, I've cobbled up an infrastructure based on Ruby and PostgreSQL which seems to work fine. It'll be released soon (weeks) under the name "lincaf" (GPL, natch). It will probably learn how to be coin-op within a few weeks as well.

    You can actually use the Kiosk tool with any KDE from 3.2.0, and most of the setting effects from it (by hand-editing config files) from KDE 3.0. The Kiosk structure allows you to default changes back to a system config file, so you can make changes for all users (or all in a group) post facto.

    What I did for lincaf was set up a template user, tell useradd to borrow that filetree, then do a pass over it with a few lines of Ruby to re-sanitise config files and the like.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  47. 100% whack-a-mole, 100% useless by leonbrooks · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I replaced such a system with Linux. Unless you lock the MS-Windows browsers down to the point of total uselessness (especially MSIE), there's always a way to slip a crack in under the radar. Every gap you close leaves another ten.

    Using Linux, /bin/false as a shell, mounting the guest-users' $HOME with noexec, and tightening the screws on a handful of KDE's Kiosk Admin config items ended all of that instantly, and so far permanently.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  48. Re:requirements are contradictory and a bit confus by Om242 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I work for a rather large library system in the Houston area (25 different locations, and I'm in the CO), so I'd like to touch on a few points in your post.

    So you don't want Windows, but you want IE, Word, Excel and Powerpoint?

    I don't believe she said she didn't want Windows, but rather she was unafraid of a non-Windows alternative.

    I'd personally try to push you away from supporting a lot of apps outside of just plain-jane internet access.

    That would be suicide! At least in my library system. You see, a lot of the time people come into the library to use the computers because *they dont have one*. What this means is that they use computers for all sorts of things, from doing term papers on Word and using our printers to print them. Some come in and work on a spreadsheet for something they are working on at home. Powerpoint? Sure! Why not? What if they need to do a presentation for a class, or for their own business, and they'd like the resources of a library system at their backs while doing research on it. Again, people come to the library to use the computers for all sorts of reasons, and it would be quite presumptuous of us if we thought they only need Internet access.

    My point is, the library is where information is collected with the tools to utilize all of it. Not just Internet access. Heck, we even provide free 'Computer Use' classes that teach people from the nearby trailor parks how to browse the web, or click with a mouse.

    Hope this helps clear up a few things. :)

    ++Om

  49. HP windows thin clients by adamiis111 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Go here: http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/thinclients/ind ex_t5000.html HP makes Windows and Linux thin clients - all fully supported. This is not something I've tried, but I agree that thin client is the way to go in this situation (low user needs and high maintenance worries). You might think about sticking with windows since so many people know how to use it - hard to say. On the other hand, linux is better in so many ways ($$$ and stability/susceptibility to viruses). Go with Linux and all will be well. Have one windows machine in the corner 'just in case'.

  50. Yes--I Ran a CyberCafe on Thin Clients by Slicker · · Score: 2, Informative

    After a few initial glitches at my CyberCafe, LTSP-based thin clients ran flawlessly thereafter. Our main troubles were in printers jamming. Although we mainly ran KDE/Linux systems, even Windows Terminal Server ran more reliably (in a GNU/Linux-protected network using rdesktop on the clients).

    My advice (inclusive of some flamebait) is the following:

    *. First, if you need/want help contact the WSU Lug or me (smutz) on the #wsulug irc channel on freenode.net

    1. Use LTSP (add a separate Windows Terminal Server and rdesktop, if you need Windows)
    2. Gentoo, SuSE and Mandrake seemed to work best for various reasons. Gentoo is the very best, but takes a lot more work to get configured.
    3. Use ReiserFS (but not on RedHat). Never mind all the anti-reiser FUD. I've been using Reiser for years on sometimes as many as 30 servers, six in one area with power outages at least once every two weeks. Reiser really is badly broken on RedHat, but has honestly been vastly more reliable than Ext3. I am running mostly Reiser but Ext3 on a few systems and the Ext3 systems are periodically corrupted after power outages or cable kicks...sometimes irrecoverably. We've repeatedly unplugged our Reiser-based systems and never had any corruption, except for a physical disk error, a bad disk controller, and an overheated system (due to a dead fan).
    4. Do not standardize on Mozilla!! It is by a huge margin, the number one crashing and account-disabling application we've used in the Cafe. The latest versions of Konqueror can replace it very handily if you put a lot of work into configuration: installing all the Netscape pluggins and setting it to say it's Internet Explorer (latest version). On the other hand, FireFox (light version of Mozilla) is reasonably stable and works great without much work into it. Konqueror has the advantage that, when it does crash, it doesn't lock up the whole user account, as does Mozilla or Firefox. Konqueror just closes as where Mozilla-based browsers (like FireFox require superuser intervention to kill it and let the user keep working) The latest versions of Konqueror have pretty much done away with the last rendering problems and stability is pretty good. Remember: Even Mozilla only locks up one user account, and doesn't effect other users. With LTSP, you can just hit reset and login as a different user..
    5. If you are going to let people do word processing, set OpenOffice to automatically save as Microsoft Word format. It'll save you and your users TONS of headaches...because they never remember, if you tell them... And get rid of KOffice.. As much as I like it, people really do need MS Office compatibility and it doesn't reasonably offer that, yet. And, make sure you install Microsoft Fonts and/or set the default font to something Microsoft Word has that is similar.. I forget what we are using...sorry.

    I'd love to offer more help but don't want to post my contact info in an open forum. You can find me and others who know of me on the wsulug IRC channel on freenode.net

    Matthew C. Tedder

  51. eMacs + NetBoot = thin client by Thu25245 · · Score: 2, Informative

    eMacs (or any recent Mac for that matter) also support NetBoot. Basically, this lets you use a Mac as a thin client. Each Mac will boot from an OS image on a server (Apple XServe) which would allow easy administration. The cost: a little more expensive than standalones or true thin clients, but not horribly so.

    Best of all, it's easy. OS X and OS X server are easy to learn for non-techies.

    The Mac OS, as mentioned above, also supports Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. Event IE, though its a little out of date.