Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal Server with Gentoo?
Karl Huysmans wrote: Hi all, I want to do a terminal server with about 40 thin clients using Gentoo. All thin clients will be able to boot PXE, boot image(s) on one server. Clients will only connect to the server using XDM, desktop will be KDE. Questions: -Does anyone have experience? A bit, more with PXE and diskless booting then terminal servers -Which is best, PXES, LTSP or just plain syslinux and use a minimal modified Gentoo install for booting the thin clients? I found PXE Booting was the best for me, and there was a nice wiki howto on the gentoo wiki site. And I used PXElinux for it (part of syslinux) for the bootloader (I have already tried a few options, PXES complains about ram disk space while creating the initrd, couldn't figure out why, cant help, didnt use initrd with my kernels ltsp splash screen garbles screen during client boot, you mean the kernel boot messages are garbled? is this is the case it may be the framebuffer device (that was the problem with me, solved by disabling framebuffer) last option seems to work, but of course I need to tweak the init scripts a bit. Anyone any experience with one of these options and their problems?) -I would like to implement Win4Lin terminal server, anyone any experience? sorry, not me -Server hardware, have a dual Xeon 2.8 available, curently 2 GB of RAM is this enough? I did it using a PII 450Mhz with 512 Mb Ram, but then it wasnt with 40 clients (more like 3, this was more an attempt at learning how to do it then a production setup) and it didnt use terminal server, so I cant really comment on this. -Any advantage in using Gigabti ethernet for the clients? Well, generally the faster the better, if you are going to mount your root FS on the server with NFS (which i presume you will) every PC will be using the network for filesystem access, if 40 clients are used at the same time then the bandwidth is shared between them (and e.g. sharing a 10mbit link between 40 clients will result in very slow machines) but note that if you use gigabit links you must make sure that the servers hard disk can provide the required transfer rates (otherwise that becomes a bottleneck) From my experience: - 10mbit is slooow, avoid at all costs if you want users to use the system (for embedded devices/media players you could get away with it) - 100mbit is pretty good, it is not the fastest but it is perfectly usable by people (provided that not too many clients are running at once and sharing the bandwidth) (100 / 40 = 2.5 mbits per client in your case) - 1000mbit i have never used (dont have the hardware) but you will need some exotic setup (you would probably need some sort of raid setup to get 122MB/s transfer rates) Gigabit is best suited for lots of clients who will need to simultanoisly use the link (1000 / 40 = 25mbits per client in your case) So probably gigabit it good for you =) but that will depend on the usage of the clients -Client hardware, anyone any experience with dedicated thin clients? nope, sorry -Audio ??? Any ideas? What do you mean? that each client has audio working? it can be done, my media player is running diskless (make sure your kernel has all the required audio drivers, having the same hardware helps in this case) Thanks for any help! -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal Server with Gentoo?
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Karl Huysmans wrote: Hi all, I want to do a terminal server with about 40 thin clients using Gentoo. All thin clients will be able to boot PXE, boot image(s) on one server. Clients will only connect to the server using XDM, desktop will be KDE. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/ltsp.xml is a short howto for the Linux Terminal Server Project, including good setup guides. - -- Dirk Raeder I prefer encrypted and signed messages. My GPG key is available at hkp://blackhole.pca.dfn.de with ID 0x05EB5446 Registered Linux user #378554 http://counter.li.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFCRVwP2QYJ1wXrVEYRAjHQAKCgn7x492yMISWWiW1AuZraAY/OKwCfXCOl lPSmAUhxY9nOC62onsesjs8= =2asf -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal Server with Gentoo?
On Sat, 2005-03-26 at 11:40 +0100, Karl Huysmans wrote: Hi all, I want to do a terminal server with about 40 thin clients using Gentoo. All thin clients will be able to boot PXE, boot image(s) on one server. Clients will only connect to the server using XDM, desktop will be KDE. Questions: -Does anyone have experience? -Which is best, PXES, LTSP or just plain syslinux and use a minimal modified Gentoo install for booting the thin clients? At work we use pxes. We connect to a win 2003 terminal server, but the only difference you'd have is you'd have it connect to X11/XDMCP etc, and have set a gentoo system up with that. Most excellent. (I have already tried a few options, PXES complains about ram disk space while creating the initrd That's odd. I defniately don't get that with 0.9. Over the time I've been using this I have had some problems with it, but only on some systems. Search bugzilla (http://bugs.gentoo.org/query.cgi , use advanced it's better) for some of them. Many times I couldn't get a whole lot done, as I couldn't find anyone else with the same issues. If you run into them, PLEASE comment :) -Server hardware, have a dual Xeon 2.8 available, curently 2 GB of RAM is this enough? That hardware is definately enough. With that many thin clients, you will probably need more RAM, however. -Any advantage in using Gigabti ethernet for the clients? Not really, though your network overall might move a little better with a gigabit backbone (i.e. gigabit switch at the center, your other 100Mbps switch(es) connected to this. You definately would want the server attached to the gigabit if you went this route). -Client hardware, anyone any experience with dedicated thin clients? Most of our thin clients are old Dells, I think they are P3 350's or 400's with as little as 32MB RAM. 64MB is more common, simply because it's rare to actually find a 32MB memory module. The trick is usually the network card: It has to support PXE booting. Many do these days. You have to go into the bios to check this out. When we run into one that doesn't, we just throw a newer 3com in. -Audio ??? Any ideas? I know pxes supports it, not sure what this means on the server side of things. I have done printer routing, where the printers are connected to the client over parallel or USB, and that works fine. Thanks for any help! No problem! I hope it works out well, this methood has saved us *THOUSANDS* of dollars, and probably a few thousand man-hours of BS (compared to actual windows clients, in this case). It's truly a wonderous system. If you go with PXES, I strongly recommend using a linux machine for DHCP. If you end up using machine-specific configs (you'll see later), the easiest way is after you get the specific conf name (CA01BLAHBLLAH.conf) , make a symlink to it with that systems more common name. Makes finding configs a LOT easier. You can't do symlinks if the TFTP server is a windows server ... I deal with this stuff daily, shoot me a direct email if you want. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal
On Saturday 03 January 2004 21:24, Ben Munat wrote: So, I emerged kdevelop last night and it tells me this dcop thingy isn't running. Are you saying that running kdeinit on boot will start it for me? How do I add it... rc-update show doesn't have anything about kde. Or should it start when the xsession starts... what's that, xinitrc? hmm, well if dcop is not started then the first kde app should start it... kdeinit an dcop are user specific, so it is started whenever a user logs in. This means you cannot start it when the system starts. if you start X with `startx`, then you can add it to your .xinitrc: just put kdeinit somewhere above the call to fluxbox. if you are using an xdm (like gdm or kdm) then you have to edit their startupscript for fluxbox. for gdm it is in /etc/X11/gdm/Sessions/fluxbox Rudmer -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal
On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 15:12:11 + Steve B. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | As far as your suggestions .. what wm are you using? I'm running KDE. | Every change I make is system wide. I don't want that. I just want the | windows for my terminal changed. I dunno about kde, but I'd imagine that if a super-light-weight windowmanager like fluxbox can do per-window and per-application decoration changes then the sixteen tonne behemoth that comes with KDE should be able to as well... -- Ciaran McCreesh Mail:ciaranm at gentoo.org Web: http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Ya know, I have heard a lot about fluxbox. The reason I use KDE is simple.. orginaly I used gnome, because that is what came with my first distro.. RHL.. then I tried to use Kdevelop and it didn't work.. so I switched to mandrake and used KDE.. so that is what I used when I went to gentoo.. what is fluxbox? I guess my main question is, will KDE apps run on fluxbox? and what is involved in setting it up. On Saturday 03 January 2004 08:55, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 15:12:11 + Steve B. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | As far as your suggestions .. what wm are you using? I'm running KDE. | Every change I make is system wide. I don't want that. I just want the | windows for my terminal changed. I dunno about kde, but I'd imagine that if a super-light-weight windowmanager like fluxbox can do per-window and per-application decoration changes then the sixteen tonne behemoth that comes with KDE should be able to as well... - -- - -- Perhaps human's greatest vanity is the belief that there is only one way to the divine. (Scott Cunningham) -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/9xW0CY3CQTSteGwRAkDYAJ46PZvhOUA2LL55praTStBmYtqXJwCeMvqm L4R2VdZcspQXY8CGsPxhcDU= =gAJW -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal
Fluxbox is a window manager, as KWin is one. But fluxbox is a leightweight one, and doesn't come with an entire desktop environment as KDE. It is possible to run KDE apps in fluxbox, there is even support for a slot section for docked apps. The only downside is that when you start KDE apps DCOP has to be started as well (where it would be already started in KDE I believe) and therefore some KDE apps seem to start up a bit slower then in KDE. But that's really the only downside I found. Bonx On Saturday 03 January 2004 20:19, Steve B. wrote: Ya know, I have heard a lot about fluxbox. The reason I use KDE is simple.. orginaly I used gnome, because that is what came with my first distro.. RHL.. then I tried to use Kdevelop and it didn't work.. so I switched to mandrake and used KDE.. so that is what I used when I went to gentoo.. what is fluxbox? I guess my main question is, will KDE apps run on fluxbox? and what is involved in setting it up. On Saturday 03 January 2004 08:55, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 15:12:11 + Steve B. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | As far as your suggestions .. what wm are you using? I'm running KDE. | Every change I make is system wide. I don't want that. I just want the | windows for my terminal changed. I dunno about kde, but I'd imagine that if a super-light-weight windowmanager like fluxbox can do per-window and per-application decoration changes then the sixteen tonne behemoth that comes with KDE should be able to as well... -- -- Perhaps human's greatest vanity is the belief that there is only one way to the divine. (Scott Cunningham) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal
On Saturday 03 January 2004 20:19, Steve B. wrote: Ya know, I have heard a lot about fluxbox. The reason I use KDE is simple.. orginaly I used gnome, because that is what came with my first distro.. RHL.. then I tried to use Kdevelop and it didn't work.. so I switched to mandrake and used KDE.. so that is what I used when I went to gentoo.. what is fluxbox? fluxbox is another windowmanager, but then lightweight and easily configurable. Although I like it a lot, I have recently changed to xfce4 which is also really great. The main reason for me to switch was the panel, and taskbar. I guess my main question is, will KDE apps run on fluxbox? and what is involved in setting it up. yes they will, 'out of the box': you do not have to do anything fancy to make it happen. I use KMail and that works fine under fluxbox (or xfce4). the only thing you might want to do is starting artsd when you login (may KDE apps use that for sound). Rudmer -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal
On Saturday 03 January 2004 11:44, Stefan Vunckx wrote: It is possible to run KDE apps in fluxbox, there is even support for a slot section for docked apps. The only downside is that when you start KDE apps DCOP has to be started as well (where it would be already started in KDE I believe) and therefore some KDE apps seem to start up a bit slower then in KDE. But that's really the only downside I found. but that is only for the first KDE app you start, after that DCOP is started. There is also the possibility to run kdeinit on login then it will be started without the --suicide switch. If you do that then don't forget to run kdeinit_shutdown on logout. Rudmer -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal
I'm using fluxbox... liking it so far. Thought I could get away without kde or gnome, but more and more of their stuff is creeping onto my machine with each emerge ;-) So, I emerged kdevelop last night and it tells me this dcop thingy isn't running. Are you saying that running kdeinit on boot will start it for me? How do I add it... rc-update show doesn't have anything about kde. Or should it start when the xsession starts... what's that, xinitrc? thnks b Rudmer van Dijk wrote: On Saturday 03 January 2004 11:44, Stefan Vunckx wrote: It is possible to run KDE apps in fluxbox, there is even support for a slot section for docked apps. The only downside is that when you start KDE apps DCOP has to be started as well (where it would be already started in KDE I believe) and therefore some KDE apps seem to start up a bit slower then in KDE. But that's really the only downside I found. but that is only for the first KDE app you start, after that DCOP is started. There is also the possibility to run kdeinit on login then it will be started without the --suicide switch. If you do that then don't forget to run kdeinit_shutdown on logout. Rudmer -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal
On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 20:15:37 + Steve B. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | What is a good terminal that supports transparency? I have tried both | aterm and multi-aterm (the later of which does not work). Aterm is | ok, but looking for other options. Eterm. The default settings are uglier than McBride in a tutu, but if you play around a bit it can look pretty nice. -- Ciaran McCreesh Mail:ciaranm at gentoo.org Web: http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal
aterm with my borderless patch! if you are interrested, say so! On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 21:15, Steve B. wrote: What is a good terminal that supports transparency? I have tried both aterm and multi-aterm (the later of which does not work). Aterm is ok, but looking for other options. Thank you -- Perhaps human's greatest vanity is the belief that there is only one way to the divine. (Scott Cunningham) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list -- Regards, Redeeman () ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\- against microsoft attachments -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal
As far as your suggestions .. what wm are you using? I'm running KDE. Every change I make is system wide. I don't want that. I just want the windows for my terminal changed. On Friday 02 January 2004 12:44, Ciaran McCreesh wrote: On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 21:29:56 + Steve B. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | Ya, sounds good... or a borderless patch for eterm (unless there is | another way I'm missing.) Any decent window manager can do that for you, no need to patch apps. If your wm is really crippled though, Eterm -x will try to launch borderless. | I really wish multi-aterm worked. Its tab's look pretty helpfull :-) Same for the tabs. Your window manager can probably do this for you, no need for per-application things. -- -- Perhaps human's greatest vanity is the belief that there is only one way to the divine. (Scott Cunningham) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
RE: [gentoo-user] Terminal problem on X, with kernel 2.6
-Original Message- From: meinside [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 26 December 2003 14:05 PM Hi all, I compiled gentoo-dev sources (2.6.0-test11) with following options, - Character devices - Unix98 PTY support - File systems - Pseudo filesystems - /dev/pts file system for Unix98 PTYs and have some problems using Eterm/Hanterm on x-window. When I try to run these programs, they only say no avaiable ptys or Can't open pseudo-tty and die. You need to add an entry to fstab if I remember correctly none/dev/ptsdevpts mode=0622 0 0 Regards Wayne -- --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.555 / Virus Database: 347 - Release Date: 23/12/2003 -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Terminal problem on X, with kernel 2.6
On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 21:04:56 +0900 meinside [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: | and have some problems using Eterm/Hanterm on x-window. | | When I try to run these programs, they only say no avaiable ptys or | Can't open pseudo-tty and die. You need to re-emerge Eterm after switching to 2.6.x. I dunno why exactly, but it fixed things for me... -- Ciaran McCreesh Mail:ciaranm at gentoo.org Web: http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] terminal server
On Nov 11, 2003, at 8:55 AM, Redeeman wrote: hi, i am going to make a gentoo terminal server. i see ltsp project, but it dont descripe good IMO :( i know about xdmcp and vnc, but i wonder ltsp seems to have kernel patches and stuff, what does it help? and vnc seems pretty slow, and i was told xdmcp is slower. how come? i hate to face this, but terminal services for windows is pretty fast http://www.nomachine.com has some info on why VNC and X connections in general are slow. they've developed an encrypting and compressing proxy for X client and server that they claim is something like 50x faster than VNC. i've actually used it, and i'm not sure about 50x but it was possible to run 1280x1024x16bpp across a slow VPN connection as if i was on the box locally. downside is it's not free :( some parts of their code are GPL-licensed, however, so that may be a place to start. j. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] terminal colors
On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, momesana wrote: Does anybody know how to set colors on the terminals? I don't mean the colors associated with the ls command which can be realized by the entry alias=ls --color in ./bashrc or ./profile but rather a way to controll how output to the console looks like. I need this because I want to make shellscripts that output something on screen look better (just like emerge :-) ). I have tried: setterm -foreground ... -background ... but it wouldn't work. The only thing that works is setterm -bold under X and setterm -reversescreen under the ordinary shells (without X). What you want is ANSI escape sequences. The best source for that I've seen is the bash prompt howto: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO/x343.html If you have a mail reader capable of interpreting ANSI codes, I wouldn't be able to show you here, but I can tell you the following: You must use 'echo -e' or echo won't interpret it. The code just needs to start with \0... (the \[ before that in the examples is just for putting a [ at the beginning of the prompt). Happy coloring. :) -- Marshal Newrock, unemployed Linux user in Lansing, MI Caution: Product will be hot after heating -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] terminal colors
It works and it is great ! :-) That is exactly what I was looking for. Thanx you for your assistance Am Freitag, 12. September 2003 18:32 schrieb Marshal Newrock: On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, momesana wrote: Does anybody know how to set colors on the terminals? I don't mean the colors associated with the ls command which can be realized by the entry alias=ls --color in ./bashrc or ./profile but rather a way to controll how output to the console looks like. I need this because I want to make shellscripts that output something on screen look better (just like emerge :-) ). I have tried: setterm -foreground ... -background ... but it wouldn't work. The only thing that works is setterm -bold under X and setterm -reversescreen under the ordinary shells (without X). What you want is ANSI escape sequences. The best source for that I've seen is the bash prompt howto: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO/x343.html If you have a mail reader capable of interpreting ANSI codes, I wouldn't be able to show you here, but I can tell you the following: You must use 'echo -e' or echo won't interpret it. The code just needs to start with \0... (the \[ before that in the examples is just for putting a [ at the beginning of the prompt). Happy coloring. :) -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] terminal colors
I use xterm and what I do is to set parameters in my ~/.Xdefaults My setting is: # Font XTerm*faceName: XTerm*faceSize: 10 # Colors XTerm*background: gray75 XTerm*foreground: gray10 XTerm*cursorColor: goldenrod1 # Cursor Blinking XTerm*cursorBlink: true XTerm*cursorOnTime: 500 XTerm*cursorOffTime: 500 # Mouse selection XTerm*cutNewline:false XTerm*highlightSelection: true XTerm*charClass: 33:48,35:48,37:48,43:48,45-47:48,64:48,95:48,126:48,35:48,58:48 but you can find a lot of other versions in the internet. You can set any color you want (not just foregrond and background.) alb On Sep 12 at 12:19AM+, momesana wrote: Does anybody know how to set colors on the terminals? I don't mean the colors associated with the ls command which can be realized by the entry alias=ls --color in ./bashrc or ./profile but rather a way to controll how output to the console looks like. I need this because I want to make shellscripts that output something on screen look better (just like emerge :-) ). I have tried: setterm -foreground ... -background ... but it wouldn't work. The only thing that works is setterm -bold under X and setterm -reversescreen under the ordinary shells (without X). I have read through a bunch of mailing lists in order to find the reason for this and somebody had noted that it was because of some escape sequences that are automatically added because of my configuration. I have pasted the message from that mailinglist beneath. any suggestions? email me at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanx in advance. momesana. setterm -inversescreen on worked on my potato, but setterm -background black -foreground green setterm -background green -foreground black seemed to do nothing... then i realized i have some escape sequences built in to my command prompt -- plus, whenever i do a ls --color the escape sequences always reset it to white. just thought i send out a flare to give the folks new to setterm a heads-up on various caveats... terminal settings can be transient and changed easily through escape sequences (editors, listings, etc)... -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
