Sure about the cost - but there are administration and facility issues which a cheap machine with hard disk doesn't address. Thin client is (generally) more robust and certainly more straightforward to administer and keep up to date.
As a cheap machine, removing the hard-disk (for use in a server, perhaps?) or for re-sale becomes an option, or keeping the hard-disk for replacement when the hardware is resold? The throw-away concept is not by any means global, even in non-English speaking Europe, so new-machine purchase can be a significant investment in the future. One of my "customers" is a charity and they have low-cost machines with hard-disks installed but which still boot as thin clients (the power leads are removed from the disks or they power-down automatically). One or two of these machines have the hard-disks pre-loaded as copies of the server for use as backup or to be redeployed. Of course, the new machine as a client model is not really part of the ltsp culture; more often otherwise redundant hardware is modified for service use. :) -- Best wishes, Derek Harding On Wed, 2006-03-29 at 11:33 -0800, Joseph Toman wrote: > I couldn't help but notice that Dell is selling their entry level PC, > complete with all the trimmings, for around $400, which is less than the > cost/client of a thin client system when you factor in the server cost, > etc.. This is assuming you're buying your thin client system new and not > building it out of old hardware. So I'm wondering how one makes the case > for thin client systems when the up front cost for thick clients is > less. You could claim that maintenance costs are less, but who really > maintains Win32 systems? Home users or small businesses certainly don't, > they can't afford the IT costs. The model seems to be that the OS > degrades at about the same rate as the hardware until the system becomes > completely unusable, at which point a new computer with a new > preinstalled version of Windows is purchased and the cycle continues. So > how do you compete with disposable computers running disposable OSes ? > Just a thought. > > J. Toman > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language > that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast > and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! > http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=110944&bid=241720&dat=121642 > _____________________________________________________________________ > Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss > For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net > ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=110944&bid=241720&dat=121642 _____________________________________________________________________ Ltsp-discuss mailing list. To un-subscribe, or change prefs, goto: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-discuss For additional LTSP help, try #ltsp channel on irc.freenode.net
