Norrie, On 20/03/14 04:40, Norrie McKinley wrote: > Hi all, new LTSP user here. > > I was wondering if there are many folk on the list installing or > planning to install any form of LTSP as a replacement for Windows XP? > > I have a client with not very much money to throw around who is willing > to try this out since she was a bit shocked when she realised the cost > of "upgrading" to Win 7 plus office 2010 / 2013 plus the cost of the > time to install this on her existing hardware (which isn't too bad). > > If anyone has moved small organisations over to LTSP from Windows could > you please tell me how the move went? Was there much kicking and > screaming from the users? > > The main stumbling block is likely to be MS Office as they rely on a few > small databases and spreadsheets but use Thunderbird / Lightning so I > don't see to many hitches there. > > I would be quite keen to configure this for in fat client or mixed mode. > > Thanks for reading and all the best, > > Norrie >
I migrated our small business over to LTSP from Windows XP in February 2010 and everyone has been happy since. It was a slow migration though. First I got them using open source software on their Windows machines (firefox, thunderbird and at the time openoffice), then I found alternatives to programs which didn't run under linux and converted them to use those. I setup a server (Ubuntu 9.10) and installed LTSP, all I did to their windows boxes was turn PXE boot on in their bios and rebooted, exactly the same hardware. On a slow day we did our first test where they rebooted and used Linux for a day and they were very happy with it. I setup a virtualbox image of their Windows XP machine which they could access off the LTSP machine if needed and after that removed the hard drives from their desktops. I also installed a product called 'crossover linux' and installed MS Office for them, but they never used it as they had converted to openoffice. Over the years we have upgraded the computers to low powered thin clients and put in a faster server and 1Gbit switches through the place. Upgrading the hardware now is easy and cheap. I now run Debian stable as I want something which is reliable and lean, we use XFCE4 as our desktop. When started with a server which was a desktop machine with 12GB of ram for 8 thin clients, we now have a Xeon E5 based motherboard with 64GB Ram and 2 x Samsung 840 Pro 512GB SSDs in a software RAID 1. This server cost $5000 retail so we aren't talking much here and it's overkill. The thin clients I've just started using are Shuttle DS47's and they retail for $330, these can use 2 screens and attach to the back of the screen. The build quality of these thin clients is amazing! I would recommend moving to LTSP, it's made my life as a system administrator much easier and increased the speed of the whole office at very little expense. from Michael ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field, this first edition is now available. Download your free book today! http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech _____________________________________________________________________ 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
