Re: [PLUG] Thin vs. Slim Clients?

[Jason <jason@nocks.com>]

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On Tuesday 06 August 2002 09H:43, W. Chris Shank wrote:
> Question:
>
> I'm looking at the Linux Terminal Server project and have setup a test
> environment. It looks pretty cool, but it seems that the Thin Client is
> hardly doing any work. from what i can tell, it boots only enough to get X
> running and then turns over control to X on the server. What if the end
> user wants to listen to music, use the cd rom, or floppy disk? i'm thinking

Not sure about LTSP, but some thin client solutions *do* let you access some 
local hardware (printer port, etc.). This is probably an area where feedback 
to LTSP and contributions would be helpful. I believe that the most common 
way of handling this is sharing the local hardware resources so that software 
on the server can access them.

> that the better solution would be to make a slim client (a term i just
> invented, AFAIK) - like the Sun computer labs I used in college. each
> workstation had a boot OS, but mounted /home, /usr, etc over the network.

I think some of the ones in the lab I was in might have even booted the OS 
over the network (BootP/TFTP) with no local disk whatsoever.

> How would this compare with the performance of the thin client? say the
> machine was a P133 with 64M of ram. Is it too much overhead to have KDE3
> running locally? Is there any way to get a better hybrid of LTSP and local
> fucntionality (sound, cd, floppy, etc).

Maybe you want VNC. I would lump VNC in with thin client solutions. With VNC 
as well as Citrix and M$ Terminal Server, you often *do* run a local 
OS/Display Server. It may not be the latest and greatest (picture DOS and 
Windows 3.1 or a really barebones X setup). Then you run VNC or something 
like it for the display. There is some resource sharing between the local OS 
and the thin client software (printing, clipboard, etc.). Some of these 
features vary and I'm not aware if any of these offer streaming audio to a 
local soundcard. Most try to limit network activity to simply mouse and 
keystrokes, but often an API is available for implementing these types of 
applications.

>
> what are your experiences?

I've actually run a M$ Terminal Server client on a Telxon (ruggedized 
industrial equipment) handheld over a wireless connection. It was running 
Windoze for Workgroups 3.11 locally w/ something like 16 MB of RAM and 16 or 
32 MB of local flash disk storage. We had to pull out just about every darn 
stinking DLL that wasn't absolutely essential to get everything crammed in 
there. It was quite painful, but the result was pretty cool.

I think you are on the right track w/ running something locally. You could 
pair it w/ VNC. I don't think you want or need KDE3, though, in your thin 
client's local display. Perhaps a much thinner Window Manager (there are 
plenty), or none at all?.

>
> thanks

Cheers,
Jason Nocks

- -- 
Nocks Software Systems, Inc.
Software Design and Development, Consulting, and Mentoring
C/C++, Java, RDBMS, Linux, Windows, TCP/IP, UML, & eXtreme Programming
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