| stefandebacker | does anyone has experience with fat clients on edubuntu? | 13:46 |
|---|---|---|
| alkisg | stefandebacker: yes, any problems? | 15:33 |
| stefandebacker | not yet, i was just wondering if it works ok. Now I use self made thin clients (pentium 1 an 2 with 16 - 32 mb ram and no hard disk) with ubuntu | 15:33 |
| alkisg | Well, for LTSP thin client you'll need at least 64MB ram | 15:34 |
| stefandebacker | but because i read that multimedia works on fat clients, i was wondering | 15:34 |
| alkisg | And for fat clients, probably more than 500 MB | 15:34 |
| alkisg | (how are you even booting those thin clients? with windows 95?!) | 15:34 |
| stefandebacker | nog linux | 15:35 |
| stefandebacker | with a floppy :-D | 15:35 |
| stefandebacker | I really works quiet well | 15:35 |
| alkisg | which linux? | 15:35 |
| stefandebacker | hum, i have to check, its something i downloaded specially for turning a old pc into a thin client | 15:36 |
| alkisg | please do, I wonder what can still be used with 16mb except for deli linux | 15:36 |
| stefandebacker | well this works for sure, I use it at a school | 15:37 |
| stefandebacker | I have a quad core with 4 GB RAM and 500 GB hard disk as server | 15:37 |
| alkisg | ok, if it's easy, please check and tell me which distro that is | 15:37 |
| stefandebacker | and then the thin clients are all old pc's with only a videocard, floppy and network | 15:38 |
| stefandebacker | booting from this diskette | 15:38 |
| stefandebacker | we tested it with 40 clients, and it still works quiet well | 15:38 |
| stefandebacker | of course not for youtube, but firefox and openoffice are much better than with windows 98se on these machines | 15:39 |
| stefandebacker | but do you have experience with fat clients? | 15:40 |
| alkisg | Yes | 15:41 |
| alkisg | They work fine, like if they had local ubuntu | 15:41 |
| alkisg | And with gigabit network they're even faster | 15:41 |
| alkisg | E.g. a lab of mine boots in 13 secs as fat clients, and in 50 normally | 15:41 |
| stefandebacker | so you install a local ubuntu on it | 15:41 |
| alkisg | No, I had that from before installing fat clients, and I'm just doing a comparison | 15:42 |
| alkisg | They don't need to have local disks | 15:43 |
| stefandebacker | ah | 15:43 |
| stefandebacker | that's what i want | 15:43 |
| stefandebacker | and does youtube work? | 15:43 |
| alkisg | Youtube , google earth, games etc everything runs localy | 15:44 |
| alkisg | So, like if they were running locally (because that's what they do) :) | 15:44 |
| stefandebacker | but without hard disk | 15:44 |
| alkisg | Yes | 15:44 |
| alkisg | Fat clients == a networked disk and also authentication on the ltsp server, nothing more | 15:45 |
| stefandebacker | wich version of edubuntu do you use? | 15:45 |
| alkisg | ubuntu 10.04 on the server, and usually edubuntu 10.04 on the client disk | 15:45 |
| alkisg | (the virtual disk, the chroot, one for all clients) | 15:45 |
| stefandebacker | ah | 15:45 |
| stefandebacker | tried that, but that wouldn't work with old hardware | 15:45 |
| alkisg | Yes, fat clients == new hardware | 15:46 |
| alkisg | Otherwise it's not so fat :) | 15:46 |
| stefandebacker | it did with new hardware, but not with old thin clients | 15:46 |
| alkisg | I'm using mixed labs | 15:46 |
| stefandebacker | 2 servers? | 15:46 |
| alkisg | Everything with < 300 mb ram boots as thin, and with > 300 mb ram as fat | 15:46 |
| alkisg | No, on the same server, with the same chroot | 15:46 |
| stefandebacker | that's my plan to | 15:46 |
| stefandebacker | hum | 15:46 |
| alkisg | https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuLTSP/FatClients | 15:46 |
| alkisg | That should get you started, and ask whatever you can't get to work there | 15:47 |
| stefandebacker | what is your oldest thin client? | 15:47 |
| alkisg | AMD K6 300 MHz | 15:50 |
| stefandebacker | i found the diskette. Its http://www.rom-o-matic.net | 15:50 |
| alkisg | stefandebacker: that isn't a linux version | 15:50 |
| stefandebacker | there you can download the image for your network card | 15:50 |
| stefandebacker | no? | 15:50 |
| alkisg | No. I already use that. | 15:50 |
| alkisg | You can't boot 16 MB clients with current ubuntu versions | 15:50 |
| alkisg | Not even 32MB clients | 15:51 |
| stefandebacker | not with current | 15:51 |
| alkisg | gpxe (that in rom-o-matic) is just a network boot loader | 15:51 |
| stefandebacker | I had to use 7.10 | 15:51 |
| alkisg | It's not an OS | 15:51 |
| alkisg | I don't think 7.10 works with 16 RAM either | 15:51 |
| stefandebacker | it does | 15:51 |
| alkisg | If I remember correctly, 64MB were needed back then too. | 15:51 |
| stefandebacker | it works here | 15:51 |
| alkisg | Maybe your clients have 64MB RAM? | 15:51 |
| stefandebacker | no | 15:52 |
| stefandebacker | clients 16 - 32 mb | 15:52 |
| alkisg | Are you using LTSP with 7.10? | 15:52 |
| stefandebacker | server 4 GB | 15:52 |
| stefandebacker | yes | 15:52 |
| alkisg | What ltsp version is that? dpkg -l ltsp-server | 15:52 |
| stefandebacker | 5.0.40 | 15:53 |
| stefandebacker | but it doesn't support new hardware | 15:53 |
| alkisg | I tried booting clients with < 64MB RAM with Ubuntu 7.10, and it wasn't possible, so I wonder why it works for you... | 15:54 |
| alkisg | (actually, the kernel needs at least 48MB) | 15:54 |
| alkisg | So you must be using something else, but I can't imaging what | 15:54 |
| stefandebacker | the booting is rather slow (2 - 3 minutes) but after that it works good enough | 15:54 |
| stefandebacker | i started from the edubuntu 7.10 | 15:55 |
| alkisg | With 48MB I was getting kernel panic, they wouldn't boot | 15:55 |
| alkisg | I started with edubuntu 7.04... | 15:55 |
| alkisg | I could get them to boot with other methods, e.g. deli linux, thinclientos etc, but not with LTSP 5 (that in edubuntu 7.04) | 15:56 |
| stefandebacker | I also seem to remember getting a kernel pannick | 15:56 |
| stefandebacker | i changed something in the ltsp.conf i think | 15:56 |
| alkisg | NBD_SWAP=true, but that's not enough | 15:56 |
| alkisg | They still wouldn't boot for me with anything less than 64MB RAM | 15:57 |
| alkisg | (both in 7.04, 7.10, 8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10 and 10.04) | 15:57 |
| alkisg | Anyway | 15:57 |
| stefandebacker | edubuntu server 7.10 i368 is the oldest i have, so it had to have been this one | 16:00 |
| stefandebacker | ah i know | 16:00 |
| stefandebacker | i compiled it with "old hardware" setting | 16:00 |
| alkisg | Compiled what? The chroot kernel? | 16:01 |
| stefandebacker | no the image of the thin client | 16:01 |
| alkisg | There's no such option in LTSP 5 | 16:02 |
| alkisg | Maybe you somehow used LTSP 4? | 16:02 |
| stefandebacker | it's a long time ago, | 16:02 |
| alkisg | If it really works with LTSP 5, it's a major success | 16:02 |
| alkisg | I've never heard anyone doing that | 16:02 |
| stefandebacker | it must have been something | 16:02 |
| alkisg | 64MB RAM is the lowest client limit - nowadays people even suggest 256 MB | 16:03 |
| alkisg | *as the lower limit | 16:03 |
| stefandebacker | but I am sorry i don't rember what | 16:03 |
| highvoltage | heh, last night stgraber complained that his thin client only has 512 MB :) | 16:03 |
| alkisg | So if you were able to do it with LTSP 5, we should put your method upstream, for others to benefit from it :) | 16:03 |
| stefandebacker | maybe I started with 6.06 and upgraded it to 7.10 (I found my installation log of 2007) | 16:04 |
| alkisg | stefandebacker: is it possible to upload your /var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp directory somewhere? | 16:04 |
| alkisg | The kernels there are the most important thing to manage booting with 16 RAM | 16:04 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1696312 2007-10-15 03:35 vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-386 | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 803541 2007-10-15 03:35 System.map-2.6.22-14-386 | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 75391 2007-10-15 03:35 config-2.6.22-14-386 | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 420774 2007-10-15 03:35 abi-2.6.22-14-386 | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1904248 2008-04-10 18:51 vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 899892 2008-04-10 18:51 System.map-2.6.24-16-generic | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 79964 2008-04-10 18:51 config-2.6.24-16-generic | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 422607 2008-04-10 18:51 abi-2.6.24-16-generic | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -r--r--r-- 1 root root 6132278 2010-01-29 19:59 nbi.img-2.6.22-14-386 | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4438038 2010-01-29 19:59 initrd.img-2.6.22-14-386.bak | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4438033 2010-01-29 20:00 initrd.img-2.6.22-14-386 | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2010-01-29 20:00 ../ | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 369 2010-01-30 16:44 lts.conf | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4518675 2010-03-04 18:17 initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic.bak | 16:07 |
| stefandebacker | -r--r--r-- 1 root root 6417787 2010-03-04 18:17 nbi.img-2.6.24-16-generic | 16:08 |
| stefandebacker | lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 2010-03-04 18:17 vmlinuz -> vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic | 16:08 |
| stefandebacker | lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 2010-03-04 18:17 nbi.img -> nbi.img-2.6.24-16-generic | 16:08 |
| stefandebacker | -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4518671 2010-03-04 18:17 initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic | 16:08 |
| stefandebacker | lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 2010-03-04 18:17 initrd.img -> initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic | 16:08 |
| stefandebacker | can this help? | 16:08 |
| highvoltage | a kernel is also a dangerous thing to have chmod 777'd :) | 16:09 |
| stefandebacker | I will change it | 16:09 |
| alkisg | Hmm, no, it doesn't really help (we'd need to boot it to see), it just says it's a recent kernel which shouldn't be able to boot with anything less than 64 mb :-/ | 16:12 |
| alkisg | So I've no idea how it's possible to boot that with 16mb.. | 16:12 |
| alkisg | highvoltage: 777 are the symlinks only | 16:12 |
| highvoltage | alkisg: ah | 16:14 |
| alkisg | stefandebacker: maybe that "16 MB" that you see is the VideoRAM number? | 16:15 |
| stefandebacker | no | 16:15 |
| stefandebacker | sure not | 16:15 |
| stefandebacker | i put in the rams myself | 16:16 |
| stefandebacker | the videocard has 2 mb ram | 16:16 |
| alkisg | Really, really strange. I wish I could see for myself how you managed to do it. | 16:16 |
| stefandebacker | hihi | 16:17 |
| alkisg | :) | 16:17 |
| stefandebacker | i know that i started from an old edubuntu server, because the new ones didn't work on the old software | 16:17 |
| stefandebacker | but i wasn't able to make one that would support old and new hardware | 16:18 |
| stefandebacker | i tried it. And the old server wouldn't boot new thin clients | 16:18 |
| stefandebacker | and the new edubuntu wouldn't boot the old ones | 16:19 |
| stefandebacker | i did change the /etc/apt/sources.lst | 16:21 |
| stefandebacker | and added this: | 16:23 |
| stefandebacker | deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy main restricted multiverse universe | 16:23 |
| stefandebacker | deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-security main restricted multiverse universe | 16:23 |
| stefandebacker | deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ gutsy-updates main restricted multiverse universe | 16:23 |
| stefandebacker | before update and upgrade | 16:23 |
| stefandebacker | according to my personal log: this is the cd I downloaded http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/edubuntu/gutsy/ | 16:24 |
| alkisg | OK, all that sounds right, I can't tell you how to fix something that wasn't supposed to be working on the first place :D | 16:25 |
| alkisg | I.e. I don't know of *any* (ed)ubuntu version that would boot with 16 RAM | 16:25 |
| alkisg | ...and yes, older kernels don't see new hardware | 16:25 |
| alkisg | So if I were you I wouldn't even try to upgrade anything, ever :D Those clients won't boot with anything recent | 16:26 |
| alkisg | For new clients, with > 300 MB RAM etc, ok, you can boot them as fat clients | 16:26 |
| stefandebacker | think I know what happened | 16:27 |
| stefandebacker | it was the network card | 16:27 |
| stefandebacker | that gave me the kernel pannick | 16:27 |
| stefandebacker | and I also got it with a sertain video card | 16:28 |
| stefandebacker | a SiS card I think it was | 16:32 |
| alkisg | Sure, network and graphics cards can cause kernel panics, but that wasn't my problem, I tried with a very big number of clients. Booting with any less than 64 MB just wasn't possible for me. | 16:44 |
| stefandebacker | don't worry about it, I think I am the only one in belgium anyway, that uses these old computers till the bitter end, | 16:51 |
| stefandebacker | there should be a low against people who run a computer on less than 64mb anyway | 16:52 |
| * alkisg has 2-3 labs here with 32mb, that's why he was interested.. | 16:52 | |
| alkisg | They work with win95 currently | 16:52 |
| stefandebacker | ola | 16:52 |
| stefandebacker | that's really old | 16:53 |
| alkisg | Well, with 32mb you can't boot windows 2000... | 16:53 |
| stefandebacker | i rather have linux | 16:53 |
| alkisg | (don't tell me you also booted XP with 16mb?! :D) | 16:53 |
| stefandebacker | no | 16:53 |
| alkisg | Sure, me too, but no linux works with such low ram | 16:54 |
| stefandebacker | well i am surely glad it does here | 16:54 |
| alkisg | (that's why I was asking so many questions, to see if it was something I could replicate) | 16:55 |
| stefandebacker | maybe you can try starting from edubuntu 6 | 16:56 |
| alkisg | I don't think so, ogra straggled to lower the LTSP 5 RAM limit to 64MB | 16:56 |
| alkisg | So it was *higher* before gutsy | 16:56 |
| alkisg | I've heard LTSP 4.2 working with 32MB RAM, but noone installs this anymore, it's been unmaintained for ages | 16:57 |
| stefandebacker | can i see my version of ltsp somewhere? | 16:57 |
| alkisg | dpkg -l ltsp-server, the one above | 16:58 |
| alkisg | So you have 5.0.40 | 16:58 |
| stefandebacker | ah | 16:58 |
| stefandebacker | 5 | 16:58 |
| stefandebacker | bzr20080212-0ubuntu7 | 16:58 |
| stefandebacker | Basic LTSP server environment | 16:59 |
| alkisg | The only thing that would help is a zip of your /var/lib/tftpboot/ltsp/i386 directory, to try to see if actually that kernels boots with 16 mb | 16:59 |
| alkisg | (or if you are not even using that kernel, and are booting with some other method) | 16:59 |
| stefandebacker | does this hold any passwords? | 16:59 |
| alkisg | No | 16:59 |
| stefandebacker | youre 100% sure its absolutely safe? | 16:59 |
| alkisg | You can skip lts.conf if you don't want to share it (or check yourself if you wrote something there) | 16:59 |
| alkisg | Yes, the kernel and the initramfs don't have anything from the user | 17:00 |
| alkisg | Only lts.conf may contain passwords, if you put them there | 17:00 |
| stefandebacker | one moment | 17:02 |
| stefandebacker | where do you want it? | 17:04 |
| Utrinqueparatus | does anyone have any experience with using edubuntu with a touchscreen? | 17:18 |
| alkisg | stefandebacker: anywhere would do, e.g. rapidshare, and PM me with the link | 17:26 |
| Utrinqueparatus | i didnt realise anyone used rapidshare since their crazy rapidpoints scheme | 17:29 |
| alkisg | Feel free to use whatever you want | 17:58 |
| alkisg | Ah sorry I thought that was stefandebacker, ignore the answer | 17:59 |
| Utrinqueparatus | its ok was just sticking my oar in anyway | 18:00 |
| Utrinqueparatus | what packages in edubuntu are best aimed at pre-school users? | 18:24 |
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