Linux, Internet Cafe, Haiti...

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Tue, Jan 17, 2006 at 02:40:32PM -0500, Jamon Camisso wrote:
> So I'm looking at simply purchasing a number of these systems to take 
> down to Jacmel and configure them there:
> http://lesstech.com/catalog/product_info.php/cPath/45/products_id/170
> 
> I'll have the hard drives taken out since it appears that the network 
> cards (10/100) PCI have a cable that attaches to the motherboard? Is 
> this perhaps the boot from LAN that I'm hoping it is? The systems have 
> floppy drives so it isn't too much of a problem.

That tends to be the WOL (Wake On Lan) cable.  It allows the system to
be configured to power up when a magic packet is received from the
network.  This is handy when combined with netboot or other boot that
recognizes the wake on lan request.  The WOL cable does not imply
netboot support.  If you see support for netboot when you turn it on,
then it has it.  You will usually see netboot or int18 or something in
the bios, and if enabled you should see some text about PXE boot when
you turn it on.  Most machines with integrated LAN have netboot, but
many with add in cards do not.  I have seen compaq systems with add in
intel 10/100 cards that had netboot, since compaq's bios supports
netboot on that card in those systems.  My home machine supports netboot
on 3c90x cards from the BIOS.

> The video cards are all 16mb AGP, more than enough to do the job 
> according to what I've read on LTSP and such websites.
> 
> Also, the sound is built into the motherboard, making it PCI if I 
> understand built in components correctly (unless there is such a thing 
> as built in ISA???). I've heard that esound will look after sound for 
> each client computer. Can it look after line in (microphone) as well?

Many older P2 and early P3 systems had onboard isa sound.  They were
often a nightmare to get working.

> One question: would gigabit from the server to the switch and then 
> 100mbit to the terminals make things quicker than just plain 100mbit 
> everywhere?

Yes.  After all the server can probably server more than 100mbit, so
that way it could serve multiple clients data at once at full speed.

Len Sorensen
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