2 X Thiinclient Server and client

[Kyle]

I have beenreading about this today, does anybody use this for there thinclient set up?

[localzuk]

I am currently trying it out. It works a charm. Speed is good. I'm gonna try out a group of kids on a test setup and see what they think next week.

It is very easy to set up, integrates with existing Active Directory settings and allows for easy control of which terminal server to connect to depending on which group they are in.

I would suggest you download it and give it a whirl on a spare machine, use PXE to boot the clients and you can have a working setup in 20 minutes.

[tosca925]

use PXE to boot the clients and you can have a working setup in 20 minutes.

Do you have to sort out issues with specific NIC's to enable PXE boots

[localzuk]

Probably yes, but almost all modern workstation PC's work fine with PXE (every machine in our school is PXE enabled). If you can't get it to work easily with PXE, you can use a CD boot version instead for testing purposes.

What sort of machines do you have in the school?

[Norphy]

I've been using it for converted PCs. It's a lot simpler than Thinstation is and it works well. We have found it fairly unstable on dedicated thin client hardware although bizarrely enough it works fine on converted PCs.

NIC support with 2X seems good enough, the only one I have difficulty with is a Realtek gigabit one. All the others I've tried (3COM, Broadcom, Intel, VIA Rhine, Realtek 10/100) work fine. The 2X OS can be installed on local media if you want as well.

[wesleyw]

How much is it per server/client?

Wes

[Norphy]

Free if you just use Terminal Services. If you want more advanced functionality and/or want to use Citrix, it starts from about £14 per client.

Pricing direct from 2X here and from a UK reseller here

[localzuk]

I wonder, with the binary version being available, is the source code available? It is GPL afterall...

[CyberNerd]

use PXE to boot the clients and you can have a working setup in 20 minutes.

Do you have to sort out issues with specific NIC's to enable PXE boots

You can use old hardisks instead of buying PXE NIC's. Create an image using rom-o-matic for the network cards you have and install onto the disk. when the machines boot from disk they only load an etherboot loader (a few Kb) then proceed to boot from from the network.
http://rom-o-matic.net/

[Norphy]

I wonder, with the binary version being available, is the source code available? It is GPL afterall...

The individual components of it like the Apache web server, the MySQL, the PXE boot loader, the kernel and the RDesktop client are GPL, yes. However the management console and the custom code for the OS isn't. There is a post with more information about what is and isn't licensed under the GPL on their forums here

[tosca925]

You can use old hardisks instead of buying PXE NIC's. Create an image using rom-o-matic for the network cards you have and install onto the disk. when the machines boot from disk they only load an etherboot loader (a few Kb) then proceed to boot from from the network.

Do you know of an idiots guide to doing this?

[CyberNerd]

You should just be able to download the rom-o-matic floppy disk image and 'dd' it to the hard-drive rather than the floppy.

dd=/path/to/rom.image of=/dev/hda

(using a linux live cd). Probably best to test the image with a floppy first.
The configuration for rom-o-matic is quite well documented - rom-o-matic is the 'simple' version of www.etherboot.org

[Ric_]

@tosca925: Try http://etherboot.anadex.de/ - I use this and it's dead easy... it also supports most common NICs.

[tosca925]

@Ric.

Thanks for that pointer. I have now got my PC booting from HDD but still having problems. It stops at looking for DHCP. I have checked my DHCP scope options and the server is set in there. I did try out Thinstation so the boot file name is stillpointing to that, does this need to change?

DO i need to change other settings to get it to boot?

[localzuk]

Have you authorised the server in your DHCP console?