[K12OSN] LTSP Lab Slow to Boot

[Moon]

Actually, in my case the server that was running Edubuntu 8.04.1 LTSP5 was
an ABIT MB w/AMD 64 x2 3800 with 2G memory and RAID 1 160G SATA and two Gig
NICs. The switch is a Dell PowerConnect 3024 24-port 10/100 and 2-Gig ports,
one connected to the server. The 8 Thin-Clients in this lab supported by the
above server are Compaq D51 2.26G P4 with 512M Ram connected to the server
via 10/100 NIC to the Dell Dell PowerConnect 3024 switch. One the server,
the CPU utilization does not exceed 30-40% running non multimedia apps like
OOo and normal web browsing, the memory utilization never exceeds 60%, and
the network never exceeds 60%. I do not know why Edubuntu choked on booting
only 4-5 of these TCs at the same time and had poor overall performance on
only 8 TCs. I replaced Edubuntu with K12LTSP EL5, same hardware
configuration, boot all 8 TCs simultaneously and they all boot and work as
expected. As I stated previously, Edubuntu has some issues with DHCP and
their networking configurations, at least that was the case on the 8.04.1
version as of 8/20. Check the Ubuntu forums for DHCP problems to verify that
people are having this problem. A quick review of the default install
network config and the DHCP config file will show clearly the default
settings don't even match right.     

-----Original Message-----
From: James P. Kinney III [mailto:jkinney at localnetsolutions.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 09:36 PM
To: Support list for open source software in schools.
Subject: Re: [K12OSN] LTSP Lab Slow to Boot

On Sat, 2008-09-06 at 01:47 -0400, Warren Togami wrote:
> Moon wrote:
> > Warren, here is another person that is having the same problems I had
with
> > Edubuntu 8.04.1. Note that the same issues with the DHCP server; not
working
> > or working very slowly. 
> 
> Quite frankly, I don't care if someone has a problem on Edubuntu.  It is 
> like complaining to the Toyota dealer about a problem with your Chevrolet.
> 
> I do want to know if you have the same problem on K12LTSP or K12Linux 
> though.

 I greatly prefer the K12Linux/L12LTSP5EL over the Edubuntu flavors
myself, but the issue he has is only partially related to the toyota on
a corvette forum. Given the bandwidth over capacity, the DHCP will fail
on ANY platform. The Toyota failure is the ssh encryption that edubuntu
uses for the X connection. This is school data not medical records!
Encrypt the login and just send the rest raw.

People: you MUST do some engineering on these installations. You can't
just expect every machine you have to run off a crappy little
network/server/used hard drive, etc. The TC environment is CPU
intensive, VERY RAM INTENSIVE and a substantial impact on network
bandwidth. I've been there, done that and I can't emphasize enough to
spend the $$ on the server and switches and go cheap on the clients. The
little, tiny clients will not drain the network as badly as they run
slower and can't be such hogs. If the clients are 2GHz machines, that X
server is gonna FLY!! Which means it's pounding the server for data. 
> 
> Warren Togami
> wtogami at redhat.com
> 
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-- 
James P. Kinney III          
CEO & Director of Engineering 
Local Net Solutions,LLC                           
http://www.localnetsolutions.com

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7


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