Will Novell Adopt The LTSP Project? 277
SafeTinspector writes "Yesterday I attended a Novell/HP Linux seminer "Delivering & Deploying Linux Across the Enterprise"
Among the boring and expected stuff, the Novell representative had several slides in his presentation claiming that Novell is going to get heavily involved with LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project) to bring policy based security and administration to the LTSP similar to those found in Microsoft and Citrix terminal servers--probably through their venerable Zenworks product line.
Also heavily hinted at would be an install wizard provided by Novell that would greatly simplify the installation and configuration of LTSP, which is currently quite complex.
I can find no hard information about this on LTSP or Novell websites, nor any information within Google newsgroup search. Does anyone know more about this?
On a side note, the laptops of both the HP rep and Novell rep were running SuSE Linux Desktop with Ximian XD2 installed and the presentation was made using OpenOffice Presentation."
LTSP & SuSE = GOOD! (Score:5, Informative)
I can say from fist hand experience that installing and configuring ltsp is not as difficult as suggested.
The install scripts worked as expected on my SuSE 9 install.
Tech support for ltsp is wonderfull! Any questions can be answered in on on line chat room on freenode.net #ltsp
I just asked the main developer for ltsp about novell and he said it was news to him. I would invite him to comment directly to this thread.
Also, on a side note, disklessworkstations.com has very inexpensive boxes that just work when plugged into a network that has an ltsp server installed on it.
There is a sister project k12ltsp that is to quote Jim McQuillen, "k12ltsp is a distro built around Fedora, that includes ltsp".
websites for these projects are
ltsp.org
disklessworkstations.com
k12ltsp.
B-)
Project Sundance Internal LTSP Novell Project (Score:2, Informative)
This pdf shows a sundance.o linux kernel module under ethernet-drivers so that guess is probably correct.
Re:Codenamed:Project Sundance (Score:5, Informative)
It is GPL'd the beta is closed for internal novell testing, I'd hope that any updates to LTSP are open, but i could see some calls to zenworks and such being closed.
Oh and where were you sitting in the room, I have a feeling I know who you are
Re:LTSP vs. SSH + X Forwarding (Score:5, Informative)
If you are using ssh+x forwarding the client still has to have an operating system.
Another 10 year old idea from Novell (Score:5, Informative)
rest here [google.com]
Basically, this was a X11 terminal server sort of thing that could also redirect Windows apps. The project was eventually killed, and Ray Noorda picked up the Linux pieces and formed Caldera (later SCO).
K121LTSP is easy way to go (Score:5, Informative)
Although thin clients have been around for a few years now, in those days 300 MHz server CPUs and 10 Mbit/sec Ethernet were top-of-affordable-range. And the performance was a bit clunky.
Now we have 3000 MHz servers and 100 Mbit/sec networks, thin clients can really fly. So long as you forget the clunky days and try them!
Re:Has thin-client computing come of age? (Score:1, Informative)
LTSP + Ximian Desktop == killer! (Score:5, Informative)
There's lots of talk about Linux desktops replacing Windows desktops, but too many people want to use Linux as a drop-in Windows replacement. That's unfortunate, because to really get the most out of Linux, you have to treat it like Linux -- play up its strengths. The remotability of X11 on a window by window basis (as opposed to the whole desktop, which is how it's done in Windows) is central to this.
This is, in fact, how the folks in Largo, FL made their system work so well [zdnet.com]. Everything runs from big servers. The nice thing about this model is that you can roll out dedicated servers for various applications. You could have a big box dedicated to OpenOffice, for example. It would run lots of instances of that application (and you get the associated memory footprint savings) being displayed on everyone's desktops. Easy to deploy, too: you just publish the icon or menu item to fire it up, and it executes remotely and transparently. The user doesn't even know that the app is running on a different server -- not even when he/she goes to load and save files, because you're using NIS and NFS to unify the authentication and the document directories across all servers.
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing. Elegant and seamless. And it's only possible in a Unix/Linux environment -- Microsoft doesn't have anything even close to this. They can't, because it screws up their pricing model. And we all know that money is more important than technology in their world.
Re:Terminal services replacement (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Terminal services replacement (Score:3, Informative)
You can even go a bit further and run them as OpenMosix nodes to share processing. The keen admin may also consider adding a box or twenty on very fast links to the LTSP server, so allowing 600 MHzfanless bookshelf PCs to render movies (or whatever) in record time.
What I find funny about this whole thing, is that a few years back studying for my degree, I started writing an XDM login thingy which used NDIS PAM modules and stuff. When combined with LTSP and some cunning scripting would have been quite useful in a Novell school situation... Still, the IT dept there were Windows freaks so it would never have flown... Nice to see Novell is finally catching up
Re:Codenamed:Project Sundance (Score:4, Informative)
But, the code for their super easy to use configurator, that they could keep closed, and basically that's what you would be paying for.
Kind of like YAST before that was opened up.
Re:Has thin-client computing come of age? (Score:4, Informative)
HUH?? please explain all the NCD exploras and other thin clients flooding the used market and ebay.
They all came from somewhere... these NCD explora 701's that I got by the pallet full were certianly in use at some corperation.
Maybe not at the companies you work at (windows based) but there are GOBS of companies that use SUN and silicon graphics hardware as well as other UNIX systems that use thin clients every day and have been for a long time now.
thin clients under windows is overpriced because of the bullcrap that microsoft plays with licensing.. solaris doesn't extort a full OS license per thin cleint used like microsoft does.
Re:LTSP vs. SSH + X Forwarding (Score:3, Informative)
Seriously, there is no voodoo in LTSP..it works much like you've described...boot via ROM or floppy, download minimal OS into ram via network, connect to remote X server. The thing that makes LTSP worthwhile as a project is putting together the pieces to make this happen (think multiple client configs...even with a thin client you've got differing hardware setups), along with some other things like remoting sound and parallel ports and such.
Novell sounds like they are going to put some cohesive, enterprise-class management tools and packaging behind it. Which it could really use to make it more attractive to businesses who might consider such a solution.
Quick Start with Knoppix (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Reinventing X? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Has thin-client computing come of age? (Score:3, Informative)
Installing LTSP is Easy with K12LTSP Isos (Score:5, Informative)
But you still pay the Microsoft tax. (Score:2, Informative)
In spite of this, if you want an HP laptop, you have to buy Windows (XP Home). Since their upgrade to XP Pro is $50, about half the retail difference, I suppose you could only expect saving 50% of the retail price of XP Home ($200*50% = $100) if they were to leave it off. While saving $100 would be nice, NOT sending anything to Redmond would make me even happier.
I don't mean to pick on HP in particular. This is true of IBM, Toshiba, and Dell (and probably any others you can name). Do any of the big name makers let you avoid the Microsoft tax?
Another easy way... (Score:2, Informative)
From the page:
PXES Universal Linux Thin Client Features
Supported servers and protocols
Boot methods
Hardware requirements
Local devices
Supported operating system
LAMENESS FILTER SUCKS
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I doubt they will find it as easy as they think... (Score:5, Informative)
Our company [lumensoftware.com] has been been doing LTSP server installs in local area school for a year, now. In that time we've learned a lot about what LTSP needs and doesn't have and have developed tools to deal with those issues. Novell has a long road ahead of them to deal with that list of challenges. Off the top of my head, here are some common ones:
Novell has their work cut out for them but I think that, ultimately, a company this large will find that the cost of supporting these servers running in places with noone with any Linux knowledge is too high -- they'll get out of the business or their customers will not get sufficient support and leave.
... IMHO, of course.
Re:Reinventing X? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Has thin-client computing come of age? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm lost now. LTSP runs all of its apps on the server by default. Only display and input go through the network. It is also not really meant to be used over a modem, cable, wan. It was designed as a diskless workstation solution to be run on a LAN. I am blown away by how many people are offering opinions on this technology when they have obviously never used it or even visited the site.
LTSP.org
k12ltsp.org
I have been using this for several years now and it is great. And the k12ltsp isos include a lot of nice bells and whistles like a nice client for window terminal servers. Which is how we are running our legacy windows apps (Access stuff mostly) on our linux terminals. That way we run the windows stuff natively without extra addons like VMware or what have you. What that meant at the small organization I work with is we dump the windows machines and consolidate those functions on one (really nice) Windows terminal server. The lions share of the work is done on the linux terminal servers (for free). Also these two sites have hands down the friendliest and most helpful mailing lists I have ever used.
Re:"X" versus "Frame Buffer" is a tradeoff (Score:3, Informative)
*Drives - http://nbd.sourceforge.net/
*Audio - http://www.ltsp.org/ltsp_sound_docs.txt and http://www.ltsp.org/contrib/ica/ica-howto.html
*
As you can see none of this is through X. X only does the screen. This is the classic windows product that does everything VS unix where you have 5 different products that combine to do the same thing.
The difference is that with Linux you can change to a different product for a single subsection if it doesn't do what you want (I've ready about 3 or 4 different network audio servers)
As for shadowing X sessions you can using VNC. Serial ports can be mapped to the server but I don't know of any projects deddicated to making that easy only a couple of scripts that do.
As for using X over a modem try http://www.xfree86.org/current/lbxproxy.1.html which reduces the bandwidth X uses. Also you can use VNC which allows you to trade quality for speed.
Is all of this through a simple GUI provided for you like Citrix? No! Does it give you more flexability? Yes! Does this mean more work? Yes! Once it's up and running do you care? No!
Does X compare to the ICA protical? No! Why? One is just for the GUI whereas the other does everything else as well. X is designed for system with limited hardware which is why by default it doesn't work in the situations your talking about but that's why there are other products that do what you want.
Comparing X and RDP/ICA is like comparing MP3 to FLAC they both do the same thing (compress audio) but not in the same way or with the same goals.
Also think when you compare Windows and Linux remember:
*Windows - One mega application that does it all.
*Linux - Lots of little applications that do the same job together.
Mandrake is already there... (Score:3, Informative)