ThinStation

[lee_sri]

Hi after looking at some of the other threads i decided to give ThinStation a try as we have some old ICL machines that we have to boot into NT then the kids have to click start then remote desktop. Everything else has been removed from the NT station but it is still slow on booting and loading remote desktop.

I have tried ThinStation Live CD on a normal computer that has a CD drive and i am quite happy with the way it connects so i was hoping to deploy this onto our thin client machines.

This will mean it all running from the Hard disk, has anyone done this or give any help as i have tried using some of the help guides but not managed to get it working from them.

Thanks
Lee

[CyberNerd]

I have done this, but now we get thinstation booting from the network using PXE/tftp.

IIRC I followed this guide: http://thinstation.sourceforge.net/HD-HOWTO.html

Probably you will need to build thinstation with the thinstation.conf.buildtime

[ChrisH]

Theres a floppy disk that will do it for you in most cases. It doesnt seem to like some computers :? I got it off Ric and attached it to a post somewhere I will find it for you.

[ChrisH]

Grr cant edit my own post

Its in the topic below this one

http://www.edugeek.net/index.php?nam...&highlight=ric

[Oracle]

Ive set up around 30-40 laptops using thinstation connecting to terminal services server using rdp as soon as they boot.

The initial learning curve is quite high, but you soon get used to the way it does things.

I initially pxe booted it but as the builds get larger it is much faster to have a hd install.

There are three things that I have yet to implement properly with is sound, usb support and a boot splash

apart from that they are running nicely and I hope to deploy more laptops as the year progresses.

[CyberNerd]

@oracle

how big are your images ?
For 2 different sets of hardware the PXE image is about 12MB and boots in a few secs. Best keep the drivers to only the ones you really need. We found PXE a great help and cuts costs significantly.

[Oracle]

5-12 mb depending

it'll take around 30 seconds for the device to extract the files it needs from pxe booting, where as hd loading takes about 4 secs to load the files and then prob 26 more to boot into rdp

[CyberNerd]

Ours are on about 6 seconds from DHCP to 'uncompressing linux' on 100Mb/s copper and total boot time is about 25sec
I guess your using a congested wireless ? or have some network issues because 30 sec to load by tftp is way too long.

[Oracle]

which version of thinstation are you using?

im trying to add usb and sound support ti my build and am having trouble with it, have you had much success?

[CyberNerd]

We're still on 2.1 and sound support is definately working - just a case of selecing the correct driver in the buildtime configuration and enabling it in thinstation.conf.network ICA settings (citrix).
I've not tried USB - don't even remember if I added support for it.
I did have issue with 2.2 using the linux 2.6 kernel as it caused a strange problem when rebooting the via M6000 boards we're using (they wouldn't get DHCP after they had been rebooted - v.strange so I reverted to 2.4 kernel (ts v2.1)

[CyberNerd]

sorry - of course we have USB - we use USB keyboards/mice
I was thinking flash drives for some reason. my mistake.

[Oracle]

yeah im trying to sort out usb flash drives

[CyberNerd]

Looking through the build.conf it seems like You need to add 'module vfat' 'module supermount' 'module usb-storage' and then make sure they are enabled in the thinstation.conf.network

[cookie_monster]

I know this is an old thread but i'd like to resurect it as you guys seem to be doing what i'd like to do.

We currently have some netbooks running XP Home and connecting to Citrix over wireless, this is by far the most reliable way to manage classes of wireless net/notebooks that I’ve found.

I'm interested in using Thin Station on future builds installing the Thin Station image on the netbook hard disk should help on wireless as it won't have to drag an image over the air. Opinions?

The one other thing I’m unsure about is will Thin Station work with wireless including WPA?

Thanks.

[Nick_Parker]

I'm having a few problems implementing ThinStation and would greatly appreciate any help you guys could give me.

I have some old computers that I wanted to try this out on, unfortunatly because of the age, no PXE. I can boot them off the Netboot LiveCD, they will use DHCP and TFTP to get the config file, all perfect - problem is most of the old machines don't have working CD-Roms.
I'm now trying to install the ThinStation files onto the HDDs but cannot get them to boot. I've taken an old 20GB HDD, created a FAT patition on it which is 100MB in size. I've used Diskpart to mark it as active, I then copied the contents of the Netboot LiveCD ISO to the new partition. Whenever I boot with the HDD I get:

"Remove disk or other media.
Press any key to restart"

So I assume I haven't made the HDD properly bootable, how on earth do I do this please?

Secondly, some of the newer machines that do PXE boot, they connect, download the software correctly and then go to a black screen and sit there. I'm guess the it's a graphics driver issue - anybody else experienced this?

Thanks for your help!!!