Selling Linux ??

[William Park]

On Sun, Nov 30, 2003 at 09:56:58PM -0500, Julian C. Dunn - Lists wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-11-30 at 19:24, William Park wrote:
> 
> > 1.  Does anyone know who is currently selling (Linux based)
> > X-terminals?
> > 
> >     X-terminal is the "canonical" solution for many situations.
> >     And, recent development in PXE network booting makes
> >	    Etherboot, Netboot, Rom-a-matic, LTSP (Linux Terminal Server
> >	    Project), Mknbi-linux, Imggen, ...
> >	all obsolete.  If you have 3c905 (what I have), then you can
> >	boot over network without above packages.  I'm told you can also
> >	do that with Intel's ethernet card, as expected since PXE is
> >	Intel spec.
> 
> *Some* of those components would be obsolete with PXE.
> Etherboot/Netboot in particular. However LTSP has to do with the
> infrastructure on the server-side, so it is by no means obsoleted by
> the ability to netboot within the NIC's firmware.

But, once you mount NFS root from the remote server, then X-terminal is
looking at the same "root filesystem" as it would have from local
harddisk.  Maintaince/administration is the same.  The only "edge" that
LTSP brought to the table was network boot.  

> > 2.  Do you think there is much demand for 2, 3, or 4 users logging
> > onto single computer?  ie. "Linux mainframe".
> > 
> >     That is, multiple sets of monitors, keyboards, and mouses hooked
> >     up to single computer; much like serial terminals, but with XDM.
> >     This would be primarily aimed at home market, where you want to
> >     have one computer serving 2, 3, or 4 users, but don't want to
> >     buy 2, 3, or 4 separate computers.
> 
> Earlier this year a fellow from a company called Display Works (?) did
> a presentation at TLUG about how he converted his company's internal
> staff to all use diskless X terminals running off a few Compaq servers
> running Linux with LTSP. I'm sure someone has the slides from his
> presentation sitting around somewhere.

X-terminal still requires motherboard, ethernet card, power supply, and
case; in other word, still a computer without disks.  I meant just
connecting second set of monitor/keyboard/mouse to a computer, ie. one
motherboard with 2 video cards (for 2 monitors), 2 keyboards (USB), and
2 mouses (USB).

I'm wondering if there are market for such things...

-- 
William Park, Open Geometry Consulting, <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org>
Linux solution for data management and processing. 
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