October 10th, 2008 | nubae
Creating a (low) fat Client environment for LTSP
For more detailed instructions please look here: http://www.nubae.com/ltsp-linux-terminal-server-project-netbooted-fat-client-for-ubuntu-hardy-and-intrepid
LTSP stands for the Linux Terminal Server Project and is about the coolest and most cost effective technology out there. I've been fortunate and privileged enough to be working with this technology in schools and businesses. Generally LTSP reuses older hardware that runs as a terminal connected to a powerful server. In this way, older penitum and pentium 2 machines can run at practically the same speed as the server feeding them. This is because the processor and ram of the server are actually being used, with only the screen, keyboard and mouse being used on the terminal end. This is great for older machines and dedicated thin clients (which can cost as little as 50 euros), but for newer intel core 2 duo machines, running them as thin clients would be a waste. That said, the benefits of having a centralised location for the computer image and management of users is extremely helpful to an Administrator. This is where a low fat netbooted client comes in. Instead of running the programs on the server, the entire environment is run in the client, hence the term fat. This also relieves the server cpu and ram, as well as the bandwidth of the network slightly, and is ideal for multimedia systems that require Flash, Video, and Audio streaming. Installing the fat client is very easy and requires you downloading the script from here for Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.
/usr/share/ltsp/plugins/ltsp-build-client/Ubuntu/030-fatclient
You then build your fat client by doing:
ltsp-build-client --chroot (name-of-chroot) --fatclient Ubuntu --highfat
Not the capital U in Ubuntu. The usage of --highfat is an extra option that builds a full multimedia sytstem and is quite resource intensive. A normal fat client has only the base educational games and programs, along with a basic internet suite. The --chroot (name-of-chroot) option is not required, it is only used if you already have a thin client environment under the default i386, which is under /opt/ltsp/i386, so name-of-chroot here would be something like fati386, which would correspond to the location /opt/ltsp/fati386/.
You can see an image here of the thin client in action:
