[SLUG] distro footprints
At the moment we're using Thinstation as a diskless Linux distribution for running Tcl/Tk applications with Firefox, but I'm finding it quite person-hostile for reconfiguration, etc. I wonder what kind of diskspace or memory footprint I'd need if I wanted to replace it with a working subset of a real distribution like Ubuntu or Fedora. I want to use official packages for easy maintenance, but to avoid cruft like Gn*me and K*E. Sound use includes music and VoIP. Hardware is VIA motherboards and CPUs with 512MB memory and a touchscreen. No shell access for regular users, no window manager, etc. Hints about which directions to avoid would also be useful. -- Christopher Vance -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] distro footprints
> At the moment we're using Thinstation as a diskless Linux distribution for > running Tcl/Tk applications with Firefox, but I'm finding it quite > person-hostile for reconfiguration, etc. > > I wonder what kind of diskspace or memory footprint I'd need if I wanted > to replace it with a working subset of a real distribution like Ubuntu or > Fedora. I want to use official packages for easy maintenance, but to > avoid cruft like Gn*me and K*E. Sound use includes music and VoIP. > > Hardware is VIA motherboards and CPUs with 512MB memory and a touchscreen. > No shell access for regular users, no window manager, etc. > > Hints about which directions to avoid would also be useful. You could try out the deeply integrated LTSP functionality in Ubuntu 5.10 (which will be released in mid-October, but available as a Preview release right now, and well worth testing). It'll work with whatever X session you choose to set up. - Jeff -- EuroOSCON: October 17th-20thhttp://conferences.oreillynet.com/eurooscon/ "Ever since GNOME development began, I have urged people to aim to make it as good as the Macintosh. To try to be like Windows is to try for second-best." - Richard Stallman -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] distro footprints
On Mon, Sep 19, 2005 at 04:57:32PM +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote: You could try out the deeply integrated LTSP functionality in Ubuntu 5.10 (which will be released in mid-October, but available as a Preview release right now, and well worth testing). It'll work with whatever X session you choose to set up. I'll give it a look, ta. -- Christopher Vance -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] distro footprints
At the moment we're using Thinstation as a diskless Linux distribution for running Tcl/Tk applications with Firefox, but I'm finding it quite person-hostile for reconfiguration, etc. I wonder what kind of diskspace or memory footprint I'd need if I wanted to replace it with a working subset of a real distribution like Ubuntu or Fedora. I want to use official packages for easy maintenance, but to avoid cruft like Gn*me and K*E. Sound use includes music and VoIP. Hardware is VIA motherboards and CPUs with 512MB memory and a touchscreen. No shell access for regular users, no window manager, etc. Hints about which directions to avoid would also be useful. On Mon, Sep 19, 2005 at 04:57:32PM +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote: You could try out the deeply integrated LTSP functionality in Ubuntu 5.10 (which will be released in mid-October, but available as a Preview release right now, and well worth testing). It'll work with whatever X session you choose to set up. I think you might have misunderstood. We have a file server already, running a different open OS. We want to boot from the server, but run all programs including Firefox and Tk locally on the minimal footprint diskless Linux. No swap. I managed once to get a chrooted Red Hat kernel build environment in "only" 50 .rpms and that was painful. I guess I could try doing the same sort of thing with Ubuntu, but was wondering how many .debs will it take me to get this kind of stuff running with no recommended packages, just the obligatory ones. And how many MB of ram disk that'll cost. -- Christopher Vance -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] distro footprints
> On Mon, Sep 19, 2005 at 04:57:32PM +1000, Jeff Waugh wrote: > >You could try out the deeply integrated LTSP functionality in Ubuntu 5.10 > >(which will be released in mid-October, but available as a Preview > >release right now, and well worth testing). It'll work with whatever X > >session you choose to set up. > > I think you might have misunderstood. > > We have a file server already, running a different open OS. > > We want to boot from the server, but run all programs including Firefox > and Tk locally on the minimal footprint diskless Linux. No swap. You can do this very nicely with LTSP. You can either run everything on a central processing server (traditional thin client model), or run everything on the client (traditional nfs root model), or run a hybrid (say, run the desktop on the central processing server where the shared memory footprint is advantageous, but run apps that need high performance display access such as video players and web browsers on the 'thin' client machine). > I managed once to get a chrooted Red Hat kernel build environment in > "only" 50 .rpms and that was painful. I guess I could try doing the same > sort of thing with Ubuntu, but was wondering how many .debs will it take > me to get this kind of stuff running with no recommended packages, just > the obligatory ones. And how many MB of ram disk that'll cost. So, LTSP will bulid the chroot for you, and set up the clients to work with a single nfs root, etc. The RAM disk cost on the thin client is minimal. So, by default the chroot will be loaded with all the sweet, sweet Ubuntu love, but you can dive into it and remove bucketloads of it if you want to. - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2006: Dunedin, New Zealand http://linux.conf.au/ "World domination is a community responsibility." - Michael Hall, LinuxPlanet -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
