On Wed, 26 Jun 2002, Lowe, Scott wrote:
Hi Scott -- Russ Herrold here -- when I was an AAG on Ohio,
first in a line department regulating charitable
soliticacions, and them on Chief Counsel's staff, I spoke with
people at the national NAAG office with some frequency.
> LTSP sounds like an extremely promising product, but like many others, I'm a
> little wary at jumping off the Microsoft bandwagon. I want to save money
> and give my users a great environment, but I don't want to screw myself in
> the process. As such, I have a few questions that maybe someone may be kind
> enough to answer.
dunno about the "screw myself" comment -- a *nix solution is
stable and scalable; a proprietary solution may be outside of
your present -- just because one is on a bandwagon means thatn
one should be. A requirements analysis is often useful.
> * How long does it take a diskless WS to boot from a central
> server, assuming a decently powered server and a 100Mbps network connection?
With a dual P-III 650, and a G or ram, switched, a ThinkNIC
comes up, worst case in 1 m 52 s (based on much testing)
> * Can users have remote access to the X server using a remote
> Windows machine? How well does it work over dial up connections? I'm
> currently evaluating Citrix for this purpose.
yes; not as well on a dialup -- rouchly similar yo PC
Anywhere's rates. But this is probably not the right approach.
> * Does LTSP have any fairly well known users?
Read the "The Story" link at the LTSP website.
It tends to be a competitive advantage to use the *nix X
terminal server approach approach. I know of a national bank
which is quite seriously intersted. I have been working on a
embeeded 200 seat application for the last few weeks, which
will knock you socks off, but the customer is not presently
interested in having the project disclosed. ...
> * Does anyone offer paid support contracts for LTSP?
I'll sell such with defined requirements, service levels, and
response times with natiowide coverage; so does Jim McQuillan,
I'd imagine.
> * How much support is required to maintain this service?
Depends on how 'current' or stable your load is, and how much
you wish to provided desktop support. And how good your level
one techs are. The server side is very low maintenance -- it
is the physical layer and the users at the desktops which
produce load.
> * Is this service feasible for a 40-50 person legal office
> where we require consistent communication with 50 other offices (not our
> own)? We regularly use the Corel WordPerfect Suite, MS Office 2000 with
> Outlook, a Windows app that may or may not run under WINE (needs to be
> tested) and a Windows based accounting package that also needs to be tested
> under WINE.
You describe packages, not functions.
Word processing, email, are solved issues. The rest of the
desktop is close enough that for a price, pretty much any
remaining Windows application is less than 6 months from
either a CrossOver shim layer, or native replacement.
Collaborative calendaring if really used, has a couple *nix
solutions whcih are price competitive. But the Corel Word
Perfect Suite had Perfect Scredule when I last looked at it.
Are you using the Corel Scheduler, the MS scheduler, a paper
ad-hoc solution, ... ?
Dunno about the un-named mystery application; the accounting
application is probably a pretty straightforward Wine shim --
which one is it?
> I very much appreciate any time that is taken to answer these questions.
No worries -- best answer is to set up a test lab with 3 or 4
boxes and see for yourself. the parts exist in the boneyard
of your office. If you need guidance, buy some consulting
from a list member if time pressure is present.
-- Russ Herrold
--
end
==================================
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Copyright (C) 2002 R P Herrold
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My words are not deathless prose,
but they are mine.
Owl River Company
"The World is Open to Linux (tm)"
... Open Source LINUX solutions ...
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Columbus, OH
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