backup & low downtime for home network

[Robert Brockway]

Hi William.

> For most people, this is how they see it...
>    - When you boot from "live CD", then you're doing some sort of "thin
>      client".  It is slow.

A live CD isn't any more related to a thin client system that a HDD based
system.  Both can act as thin clients given the right configuration but
normally aren't used that way.

>    - To do "thin client" properly, you have to do PXE network boot,
>      NFS root mount, etc.  And, that's more hassle than average person
>      can handle.

Depends who the "average person" is here.  For the average member of
GTALUG it may be viable.  For someone who knows little about computers -
they'd need someone to help them out.  Maybe that will change in the 
future.

>    - If you have only one computer (how most people start off), then
>      you can't do "thin client".

Many homes now have multiple computers and a LAN.  This is going to become
more common over time.

>    - Once you need more computers, commodity PC is all they know and
>      are comfortable with.

Yep.  The biggest problem is they simply don't know anything except the
workstation paradigm.

>    - Because you need server and client, whenever one changes, you have
>      to corresponding changes to the other.

Not really - the client boots from PXE (or something else) as you note 
above.  The client config comes directly from the server.  Upgrade the 
server s/w and the client s/w goes with it.

Rob

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"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine..."
 	-- RFC 1925 "The Twelve Networking Truths"
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