P3s run great as thin clients (just need a pxe card) and the ubiquitous
P3 compaqs have them already. But if people haven't got any money at
all, the the LTSP option is a stretch as they need at least one halfway
decent machine - but if they can stump up a couple of hundred quid for a
basic dual-core with 2GB+ RAM it'll work great.
I've tried using single-cores (AMD Sempron and various Intel) with 1GB
RAM and it sort of works OK but you get a hellish lag if 3+ people use
OOo at the same time - which isn't great for a production environment.
OK if all people will do is surf the web though.
P3s can't run Xubuntu standalone for any sensible use - even the first
generation XP PCs can't without a RAM upgrade (any P4 will do but 512 is
the min RAM if you don't want to have time to make and drink a cuppa
each time you open an OOo doc) - and a gig is more like it if you ask
me. Again, you can get away with Xubuntu standalone on P4 with 256 MB
RAM as long as no-one's going to try to get much more ambitious than
surfing the web.
Older than that and it's <gulp> Puppy . . . or a custom Debian desktop.
Paula
On 19/07/10 15:50, Rob Beard wrote:
On 19/07/10 14:16, pmgazz wrote:
I've done a bit of this - I've demo'd an Ubuntu LTSP and also laptops at
voluntary sector events - people don't 'get' what an operating system is
and tend to think that MS Win is 'part of the machine'. They have to
have a reason for considering changing OS and I find that being able to
help the environment and save money at the same time is a powerful
incentive to consider something new.
In my case I wasn't changing the OS, they didn't have any computers to
start with and I managed to source some old desktops (again with no OS)
and funding for a server, monitors, keyboards, mice and custom built
cabinets.
Luckily the centre manager was aware of Open Source and wanted some
'green' machines (i.e. lower power consumption).
I see what you mean though about some people's perception, one good
reason for switching is if they have older hardware, especially anything
that might be running Windows 2000 (unlikely but you never know), they
could find that older kit might run better with something like Xubuntu
or as LTSP clients.
Rob
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