2.4. The Thin Client

The function of this profile is further described in Section 5.2

• You need a machine with a video card that is possible to configure automatically, otherwise you must manually configure the video card by hand. You do not want to use old onboard ISA-based video cards- they are just trouble.

• You want to have a network card that is capable of a so-called PXE-boot. That means you won't need to make any boot floppies for the thin client, which is a bothersome thing. Boot floppies are bothersome to create, and they get lost. You need them every time you boot the thin client. With a PXE-card it's just plug&play- you turn on the machine, and that's it. PXE-network cards do cost a little bit more than normal network cards, but they're worth it, definitely.

  My Experience Says.... I've too often seen that the money saved by not buying PXE-network cards, is wasted many times when trying to get ordinary network cards to work in thin clients. As a minimum, I recommend that you buy a couple of them, just to test, and to use when you just want to get a thin client up and running quickly.

  If you don't have PXE-network cards, you must create boot floppies for your cards. You should first have a look at Section 8.7.3, that is a kind of universal boot floppy, with support for the 30 most common network cards. If that one doesn't work with your network card, then you can visit rom-o-matic.com and follow the online instructions there for making boot floppies. These boot floppies can be created from a Windows, Linux or Mac-machine.

• You need a minimum of 32MB RAM[1] in the thin client. In Skolelinux/Debian-edu there is the possibility to use swap over NFS to the thin client. This is done automatically if you add the MAC address of your thin client in /etc/dhcp3/dhcpd.conf. Have a look at Section 8.7.4

  The option to use or not to use swap over NFS to the thin client is set in the /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf look out for this

          USE_NFS_SWAP       = Y
          SWAPFILE_SIZE      = 32m
  

  In this case swap over NFS is turned on, and the swapfilesize is 32MB, this swapfile is created on the thinclientserver, make sure you have enough space in the partition /var/opt/ltsp/swapfiles, if not have a look at Section 8.5.5 for increasing it.

• Your processor doesn't need to be faster than 100MHz.

• There is absolutely no need for a hard drive. It just makes noise, generates heat and uses unnecessary power. Remove it, or disable it physically.

• A floppy drive, if you want to use it in the thin client, see TODO 7

• A connector for USB, if you want to use it in the thin client, see TODO 6

• A PCI sound card, if you want to use sound on your thin client- only advisable if you have enough bandwidth available. Sound consumes plenty of bandwidth, see TODO 8

Plenty of people have wanted and tried to get the CD-ROM to work in a thin client, but without success. If you have managed to get it to work, please let me know.