Thin clients as emergency stand in.

[plexer]

We don't have the funds to purchase full blown pc/laptops for temporary replacements when others need to be taken out of service and I wondered wether thin clients could help here.

Just a simple one for the desktop and a low powered linux based notebook for mobile people.

Any thoughts good or bad?

Ben

[j17sparky]

Aslong as the "broken" fat client can access the network, the ram and CPU works, etc, then you can PXE boot them as thin clients, therefore you dont really need many "spares", just a server with TS/etc

[plexer]

I meant if I need to remove a fat client to go and fix it then I can give them something as a stand in until it is repaired.

Ben

[FN-GM]

sounds a good idea to me have you seen thinstation? - :: Thinstation - a light, full-featured Linux thin client OS ::

[dhicks]

Any thoughts good or bad?

If you have a thin client server dishing out OS images via PXE / TFTP on your main network you won't be able to use PXE for anything else, eg booting Ghost or other imaging software (I think RIS uses PXE too).

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David Hicks

[armadillo]

sounds a good idea to me have you seen thinstation? - :: Thinstation - a light, full-featured Linux thin client OS ::

Hi, I downloaded the thinstation the other day and I am just wondering how I go about installing it, is it a question of copying it onto the c drive and then boot?

Thanks

[FN-GM]

Hi, I downloaded the thinstation the other day and I am just wondering how I go about installing it, is it a question of copying it onto the c drive and then boot?

Thanks

Make a CD from the ISO and boot from that. It will install it onto the HDD for you.

[armadillo]

Make a CD from the ISO and boot from that. It will install it onto the HDD for you.

Thanks for your advice- I will try it next week and will let you know how I get on.

[ssiruuk2]

If you have a thin client server dishing out OS images via PXE / TFTP on your main network you won't be able to use PXE for anything else, eg booting Ghost or other imaging software (I think RIS uses PXE too).

--
David Hicks

You can work around this by using a seperate dhcp scope for your thin clients and specifying the pxe boot settings in that scope. Options 67 and 68 I think are what you need. This way you can carry on using RIS etc on the rest of the network without having to turn it off and on when you want to build a machine. (like I was for a while!)