[K12OSN] Booting a Client

[Petre Scheie]

mvl.1 at newulmtel.net wrote:
> Sorry if this is a duplication - not sure if it was sent.
> 
> I have a new installation of K12LTSP. Some clients boot normally; One set
> of identical machines (about 20) terminate the boot with "Fatal server
> error: no screens found."
> 
What version of K12LTSP are you running?  The 4.4.1 or the 5.0 (beta)?  Look in 
/etc/k12ltsp-release if you're not sure.

Just guessing here, but it sounds like it's not able to properly detect the video 
card/chipset in those clients.  Get the MAC address of one of the clients in question, 
add it to the /etc/dhcpd.conf* file like so:

host problem {
	hardware ethernet     00:90:27:b6:b9:15;
}

but use the MAC address of the client instead of the number I used.  If you look toward 
the bottom of the file, you'll see other examples.  What you're doing here is just 
assigning a name to the client so it's easier to configure what X server it loads. 
After you've made the above change, restart the DHCP server ('service dhcpd restart'). 
Then add this to the /opt/ltsp/i386/etc/lts.conf file:

[problem]
	XSERVER = vesa

Add this to the bottom of the file; there are other examples there, too.  After that, 
reboot your client and see what you get.  What you've done is told the system that the 
client with MAC address 00:90:27:b6:b9:15 and known by the name 'problem' should have 
the vesa X server loaded, rather than trying to auto configure it.  HTH

Petre