1. What kind of hardware do I need at the workstation end?etherboot was designed to put executable code inside a NIC card ROM for x86 system to remotely request an IP address and download a bootable image.
As I said, we have Sparc's. If we have to replace them by PC's we won't save as much. I guess we will still save because we'll be able to go for low-end PCs.
Can etherboot work on a Sparc?
Sun has offered this feature for a long time before Intel caught up with the PXE boot protocol (similar function as etherboot).
Without knowing which Sparc box you have, you may already have the capability to request an IP address from the DHCP or BOOTP server, and then download the necessary boot image to the client.
Can the client-side LTSP kernel work on a Sparc?As I mentioned before, I don't know if a pre-built client LTSP kernel is available for Sparc. However, the source code is available. So, you could build your own client LTSP kernel for Sparc. Incidentally, you could have the LTSP server be a x86 box and still use those Sparc workstations as LTSP clients. The LTSP server and LTSP client do not have to be the same architecture.
2. Server requirements (hardware):Yes, this is very feasible for LTSP. Hardware requirements are based on how you want to approach the problem. You could purchase 1 huge server to service the 20 LTSP workstations plus applications today, and with enough horse power or expandability for your future growth to 60 workstations. If you add a second processor to your LTSP server, it will benefit all the applications running on that machine (including LTSP software).
Say I want 20 workstations running KDE or GNOME that can still use OpenOffice.og, Mozilla and Maple or Mathematica at a confortable speed.
Can I do that with LTSP? What kind of hardware do I need at the server?
Feel free to use x86 hardware terms. I'm just looking for a ball-park idea.
Say I change that to 60 workstations. Is it still feasible?
Instead of a single huge server, you could purchase 1 server dedicated as an application server (your OpenOffice, Mozilla, etc. run on this server). A second server is purchased to run the LTSP server for the 20 workstations. When you want to go up to 60 workstations, just add another LTSP server box. The benefit to this approach is you only pay for what you need as you go. Also, the servers do not have to be as powerful as the one monster server solution, thus, you save some money.
To ball park a LTSP server some places to look: http://www.ipaterson.ca/writings/initiatives/ltsp.html and http://204.182.52.180/fom-serve/cache/11.html
Remember, memory is cheap. So, the more memory you can afford for your server(s), the happier you are by how efficiently your servers work. Linux will utilize the extra memory as a hard drive buffer storage to increase data throughput.
To ball park your LTSP server disk space: Most recent versions of Linux can use 2G of hard drive space to store the OS and many common applications. You should account for how much filesystem space you are going to allocate per workstation for user files (perhaps 1G per workstation).
Personally, I prefer SCSI hard drives over IDE. SCSI drives can be purchased in fast and wide data transfer configurations (thus, making data throughput faster), can handle synchronus data transactions as well as data chaining, and go well beyond the 2 device limitation per controller that IDE has. However, SCSI hard drives are usually more expensive than IDE. I realize that IDE has improved the storage size and the data throughput. Also, if you purchase the right server, you can got hot swappable SCSI drive trays to allow you to replace a bad drive while the server is running.
Regardless of the technology chosen, SCSI or IDE, do go with RAID on the server(s). At least RAID-1 (mirroring). If you don't want to pay for a hardware controller that can do RAID, Linux can do software RAID. Just factor in a slightly faster processor to handle the data transfer of the RAID. Nothing worse than having 20 angry workstation users upset because the server's hard drive crashed and now they have to wait for a new hard drive and tape restoral to recover files.
Ken Cobler
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