Thin Client Solutions For Libraries? 502
phatlipmojo writes "I'm a librarian in the process of opening a brand new small public library from the ground up (literally; we don't even have a building yet). The library director and I are considering our options for public computing terminals. Having experienced the frustration of dealing with Dell machines running Windows XP on a daily basis, we're trying to consider other options, and we've been talking about maybe using thin clients. Have any of you used or worked in a library (or similar environment) that uses thin client stations for public computing? What are your impressions? What are the perks and what are the drawbacks?"
"I'm hoping that using thin clients could save us daily time troubleshooting bluescreens^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H computer glitches, allow us a greater degree of uniformity on the public terminals, save us the trouble and expense of putting Anti-virus software, Fortres, and Deep Freeze (or other such utilities) on each machine, and make our machines more difficult for black hat types to mess up on purpose. I'm also hoping we'll be able to offer web access (IE and Mozilla, hopefully. IE at a minimum), Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. And have floppy drives. Plus, it would really comfort me not to pump several hundred dollars per machine into a monopolist's coffers for an OS we're just going to debilitate anyway.We're in the odd (for a public library) position of money not really being a significant factor in the decision. So, for those thin-client-lovers among you if cost weren't a factor, would you still prefer them to full-fledged PCs?
The other factor here is the tech skills required, because our IT department is me. As librarians go, I'm pretty tech-savvy, but as Slashdotters go, I'm pretty much a luser. So homebrew Linux solutions are really out (plus, vendor support is important for selling ideas like this to the municipal government), but systems requiring basic-to-intermediate networking and troubleshooting skills are in, and I'm not afraid of non-Windows OSes."
LTSP for Public Libraries (Score:5, Informative)
success story [slashdot.org]
Re:Not a luser! (Score:5, Informative)
So she's okay.
corrected link (Score:5, Informative)
From an old Newsforge article- (Score:5, Informative)
Using LFS as a starting point, Luis and Mike were able to build a minimal Linux kernel that included only the functionality required by the "kiosk style" machines. They added the Gnome desktop environment, the Mozilla browser, and OpenOffice.org to complete the picture. They call the new distribution "Lumix."
Anywho, give that a try --
Article From Newsforge-
http://www.newsforge.com/os/04/05/03/1520209.shtm
LumixTech (link from article doesn't work...give this a try or google it)
http://www.lumixtech.com/ [lumixtech.com]
Good luck with your new library!
-thewldisntenuff
Sun Rays (Score:5, Informative)
I know you said that money is less important, but Sun Rays still might be out of your league. I have no idea what they go for.
Sun Rays are the epitomy of the thin client. I mean, they really are thin. Only like 2 inches thin. They run off a Solaris central server, and have no hard disk or much of a CPU. I use them all the time in my CS lab at UC Berkeley.
I'm commenting more on the general aspect of the thin client than these specifically, because I think something else might suit your needs better. So let me just say that in a lab of 30 sunrays, they always seemed slow. But then you (probably) don't have freshmen writing C programs with memory leaks and infinite loops that clog the pipes. If you had a moderate number running off a decent server, I'm sure they'd be fine for just about anything you do. Solaris is a pretty standard UNIX environment; you can offer Gnome and KDE and such, and all the applications you described, and they'll work fine as long as people don't expect 3D games.
But I'd consider alternatives. It all depends on how many systems you want to offer. If it were 5-10 systems, I'd just get cheap PCs and install RedHat or other linux, or an old version of Windows. Then keep a disk image handy so you can wipe them whenever you want. But if you need a lot of workstations, then a thin client might be more economical. Work it out and see.
Money Not a Factor - Use Citrix (Score:4, Informative)
Consider Windows Terminal Server (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/eval
Thinstation (Score:5, Informative)
I can really recommend it as a thinclient solution.
Thin Client Resources (Score:5, Informative)
I would start by checking out the case studies that are listed at citrix.com. One immediately comes to mind: http://www.citrix.com/site/aboutCitrix/caseStudie
Incidentally, the man in question here runs a little site by the name of http://www.thethin.net/ [thethin.net]. It is hands down, the number one resource for thin client solutions on the web. Join the list and listen in for a while, I guarantee you'll learn more about terminal server and thin clients during the first week on this list than you will learn in any classroom.
Good luck to you!
Here they use Sun terminals (Score:3, Informative)
At my university (http://www.kuleuven.be/ [kuleuven.be]) the library uses Sun terminals. Searching for books can be done online from your dorm or from one of the netscape browsers running on the Sun thingies.
The Sun computers look very sharp, are very small and are all accompanied by a LCD display. They run some sort of Linux-Unix like OS.
There is also StarOffice installed on all computers so you can type something and mail it to yourself
The books themselves have RFID tags on them (or something like that, the building knows when you take a book) and you have to enter/leave by using your University ID card
Re:thin client impressions (Score:4, Informative)
A thin client is one with little or no computing power... Just a screen, keyboard and mouse, give or take...
A slimline desktop is one where you "pay more to have all that computing power stuffed into a smaller case."
OTOH, maybe IHBT.
Real answers... (Score:5, Informative)
The advantages of thin clients in this type of environment are many. It's almost impossible for a user to screw up what is effectively nothing but a terminal.
Downsides would include the need for a more expensive server on the back-end, as all the horsepower now has to reside in one place. Also, when the server dies, _everybody_ dies.
And if you use commodity hardware for the thin client, it can be harder to lock things down on the client end. General rule of thumb is NO drives of any kind with the client configured to boot across the network.
Many people have suggested the SunRay, and it's hard to argue with that - it's one of the first thin clients that's really usable (IMHO).
http://www.theboyz.biz/ [theboyz.biz] Computer parts & more!
Here's how to do it. (Score:3, Informative)
2) install mandrake linux official 10.0 on it
3) install ltsp 4.1 http://www.ltsp.org/ [ltsp.org] on top of it
4) get a load of old PC hardware (everything up from pentium goes, all you need is a non s3-grahic card and one spare pci-bus)
5) rid the PCs with all moving parts (leave the fans though...)
6) get pxe-booting network cards for the clients (100mbit is fine, via-rhine for example)
7) fire up.
if you want to do it with new hardware, just buy some via epia+case combos =)
Mail me for more details - I can also do the actual job if being paid =)
Multi-user Linux for Libraries (Score:1, Informative)
There's been a few stories about Multihead Linux recently. Here's an implementation built specifically for libraries:
http://userful.com/products/library [userful.com]
Unlike the common 'backstreet ruby' approach, the userful stuff can handle 8-10 heads at a time, with full acceleration.
For your purposes, it's already been integrated into a library situation...
Re:Sun Rays (Score:5, Informative)
For 40 Sun Thin Clients with 1 Server: $74,935 (for Library use, you can probably add up to 60 Thin Clients on one server due to usage)
For 40 Dells (with required antivirus and Ghost):$76,307.28 (with small business discount)
Upside of thin clients is - no work locally, its all on the server. Good technical support (they answered our test call within 2 minutes) will help out with any issues you can't take care of.
If you want an 8 page report on the pro's and cons between the average windows workstations and thin clients (as well as 3 PC manufacturers compared to Sun's Thin clients), feel free to email me.
K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project (Score:2, Informative)
K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project
Perfect for what you're looking for and already in use in various schools and libraries.
Re:From an old Newsforge article- (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How about a nice friendly Mac? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not a luser! (Score:1, Informative)
http://meadvillelibrary.org/os/pala-ltsp/ha
http://meadvillelibrary.org/os/pala-ltsp/pre
LTSP, with support! (Score:2, Informative)
There is no justification for ever installing full-blown PCs in this kind of environment. (No, I don't work for or with these guys, I just have way more experience than I ever wanted administering extensive networks of independent PCs in environments where the cumulative equivalent of VT's Big Mac was brought to bear on tasks that cumulatively required roughly a dual P4). Web browsing, word processing and the like require almost no processing power. Unless your users are creating/editing/transcoding audio or video, compiling elaborate programs, or doing deep data searches on local data, the computing power is wasted.
Not to mention the time wasted on cleaning up after clueless users (in a properly configured thin client environment users are only users, not manipulators, of the core operating environment), keeping up with the latest patches, x number of software/OS "up"grades instead of one (and the requisite hardware upgrades - two, three years down the road, instead of replacing a library full of obsolete machines, you replace one, and keep your clients),... I could go on, but /. comments aren't supposed to be books, so I'll stop.
Pilotlinux (Score:1, Informative)
Take a look at Pilotlinux: http://www.pilotlinux.nl/pilotlinux/ [pilotlinux.nl].
PilotLinux is a thin client LiveCD. It's Knoppix/Morphix based and supports RDP, VNC and X. Citrix support is being added.
Re:Sun Rays (Score:5, Informative)
ObDisclaimer: I work for the Linux Server Group at Sun.
I have also worked rather intimately with a few thin client technologies over the years, including SunRay, X Terminals (NCD, e.g.), and WinTerminals with WinFrame (NT 3.5) or MetaFrame (NT4/2k). I run a few SunRay servers today, and have run a 75-user cluster of Win/MetaFrame machines in the past. All of these solutions have their plusses (in fact, terminal services is the one Windows technology I like)...
There are, however, bits of your specific set of issues that point me at the SunRay for you:
If you've got some coin and are willing to spend a little on systems, I'd recommend the SunRay because:
It never ceases to amaze me how many PC techs I know complain about crawling under desks or removing 25 lbs of personal effects to fetch a system so they can swap a dead drive or similar. When I tell them that thin client technology can guarantee them never having to crawl under a desk again (barring wiring or serious catastrophe), they definitely stop worrying about nonexistant 3D performance. Thin-client is an awesome way to go--you might not spend that much less on the machines, but maintenance and client upgrade costs go to zero.
The downside is no Windows (excepting via e.g. VMWare, Wine, etc.). OTOH, even on Windows Terminal Services you have programs that aren't really written to be run by multiple users on the same machine (even Office gave us fits at times with entries in HKLM instead of HKCU). It's gotten better over the years, though...
Short version: Even if you don't go SunRay, save yourself a lot of headache and go with a thin client.
My suggestion. (Score:1, Informative)
HARDWARE
--------
Server: Some modern athlonbased computer, maybe dual if it is not too expensive. Lots of ram! (like 2 GB or more). This should not need to cost more than 1300-1500 USD (or less if you do not need dual CPUs, etc).
Clients: Some kind of mATX motherboard (that supports network boot) with integrated sound, networkcard and graphics. Buy the cheapest duron-CPU money can buy
Monitors: The most costeffective is probably cheap AOC 17" monitors for around 100 USD. (or less)
Network: Go for dlink or netgear, cisco would be overkill in this type of setup. Cost: around 100 USD (or less).
Total cost of hardware: 1400+100 = 1500 USD for server and network, Then an additional 350 USD for each client. So a 6 client setup would cost somewhere in the region of: 3600 USD.
SOFTWARE
--------
Server: Standard debian installation. I would use GDM as login manager and KDE as window manager. With the program "gdmchooser" I would configure gdm to accept connections from other hosts (it is located under the last tab i believe). And i would configure KDE into kiosk mode (however, you can use whatever windowmanager you like). For booting the clients i would set up a DHCP server and BOOTP server, with a small vanilla debian installation (I believe there is a debian package containing a small vanilla debian system).
Clients: Using DHCP + BOOTP the clients load a small linux installation from the server, which only includes what is necessary (like X server, drivers for LAN interface, correct XF86-config file, etc). Add a startupscript that does: X --query SERVER-IP, and voila you now have the gdm login screen from the server when you boot your clients!
(you can configure gdm to autologin a special library-user if the library-visitor is not supposed to have an own account).
Re:LTSP for Public Libraries (Score:2, Informative)
Re:From an old Newsforge article- (Score:5, Informative)
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/0
There is no publicly available cd image of this. You have to contact the authors to get a copy.
I was going to try this out in one of the computer labs at school. I even contacted one of the author's and got no reply.
Instead I just did it myself. We had some crappy 200 and 300 Mhz machines for this.
1. I loaded a bare slackware system with network support.
2. Put mozilla firefox on the systems.
3. Unzip the browser.jar for mozilla (Java Archive, compatible with zip).
4. Hand edit the browser.xul file to disable unwanted features (save to disk, bookmarks, preferences).
5. Zip the new browser.xul into browser.jar.
It might sound like a lot of work involved, but there are tutorials on kiosking a browser available via google. It took me two hours at the most to get mozilla locked down and kiosked.
The hardest thing I had to do was get mozilla to start up in place of a logon manager. Because I tried it a few ways and ended up with nasty infinite loops that don't play nice with init. Beside the point, because you probably want something other than just browser access in your library. What I ended up with was a nice locked down browser in fullscreen mode and nothing else. Which was the original goal to have browser kiosk. Extremely easy to modify mozilla to fit your needs. One alternative I have seen is a 10 headed server (1 server, and 10 screens, keyboards and mice). A turnkey solution with applications loaded, exactly what you are looking for. The downside is a price ranging in tens of thousands, depending on what optional packages you want added.
Sun Rays - silent but deadly (Score:3, Informative)
Version 3.0 of the server software [sun.com] also runs on Linux. V3 is also bandwidth efficient enough that you can deploy over broadband or a group over 10Mb Ethernet.
As for how much they cost, on modern hardware the main thing to bear in mind is the amount of main memory you have. Sun have a sizing guide [sun.com] to help. For lightweight usage, eg a library, they suggest you can run 40 clients off a server with 4GB of main memory.
So 40x Sun Ray 1g = $359 * 40 = $14.4K (re-use monitors from your existing systems). On server side, a Sun Fire v20z with 2x Opteron 250s and 4GB of memory is $7k, though you could get a model with slower CPUs and pay for more memory. As a library, you should be able to get an educational discount too.
Just My opinion (Score:2, Informative)
For arguments sake, lets assume you want 5 terminals throughout your library. If money were no object, I would order 5 standard PCs from your favorite computer manufacturer (this could be a big dog like Dell or HP or a local computer store.) The only things you want to pay special attention to are warranties. Get the best warranty you can get your hands on. Not to be an advertisement for Dell, but they do have a nice 4year/4hour on site warranty. Once you call in a hardware problem, within 4 hours there will be a tech there to work on it and they'll do this for 4 years. That's hard to beat. One nice thing about buying a standard PC instead of one designed to be the minimum thin client configuration is that if you change your mind later, you can always use a non-thin client solution. I would also consider buying an extra PC. Depending on how busy your terminals will be, you may not get enough time on one of them to update your deploy image. You will need to do things like perform virus scan updates and apply security patches and bug fixes. If taking over a terminal every once in a while is no bigge, don't worry about the extra PC.
Once you have your 5 terminals you should set them up with the standard OS and software you intend to support. I see a lot of Linux suggestions here and Linux could very easily pull it off. But, for a public library, Windows will easily work as well. It is really up to you and which OS you want to support. Whatever you do, make sure you have Mozilla, an office suite, and a virus scanner. If you run Linux, this should be Open Office and if you run Windows, it should be open office AND Microsoft Office. Once you have decided that, I think the idea of bootstrapping over the network is a good idea, but there are other options. Wether you choose Linux or Windows XP, both are capable of firewalling and you should definitely use that feature on the clients and it probably wouldn't hurt to have a firewall protecting your entire building too. But that's just my paranoia kicking in.
First, the drawbacks of net bootstrapping. If you do this, you will either be loading an entire OS and it's apps onto the client hard drive which would take a long time and every reboot of the machine would have that minimum as a downtime. Or, you could just load the base OS onto the machine and have all the apps installed on a server via a mapped drive. This would require less downtime at boot, but your network and server become single points of failure for your clients and you would have long application load times. I would recommend a daily reboot. If you do this when the library opens, then the downtime is not a problem. I would snag the whole OS over the network. This way, regardless of who walks in and out of your library, at least once a day you have cleaned up their messes and you will only have to maintain a single deploy image for all of your terminals. Also, if a computer has trouble and you are too busy to spend time troubleshooting or if you're out and a non-techy person is there, all that is needed is a reboot to take care of the problem.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind. I assume your computer will be capable of searching some sort of database to let patrons search for books and what not. If this is so, you might also want to consider having the terminals have their own databases that snag a copy of the database data from the server at boot time. Every 15 minutes or 30 minutes or so, the clients can request updates. This way, you still only have to u
Re:linux.. (Score:5, Informative)
look on freshmeat for some of the cybercafe management systems. you can allocate time to a user and it will shut them down at the end of the alloted time. if your library is not busy, this is not needed, but some libraries are very busy and instead of having the librarians police the stations, you can have the computers police them for you so those waiting to use them will get their time at the terminal.
It worked great for us at a company demonstration of broadband. we had people waiting to "feel the future" so I set up the linux boxes to only allow 15 minutes per user. it worked great and it eliminated the leaches sitting there for 5 hours hogging the access terminals.
Howard County Library, Maryland (Score:2, Informative)
http://os.newsforge.com/print.pl?sid=04/05/03/152
http://www.libraryplanet.com/2004/05/lumixis [libraryplanet.com]
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA406
are about a distro based on "Linux From Scratch" that was specificly created for public access terminal use in a library. It has been deployed and is loved by everyone, the public and library management included. I have not used it myself, I heard about it at a user's group meeting. You might want to contact the author and get a copy. ljsalazar(at)comcast.net The project website http://www.lumixtech.com/ [lumixtech.com] seems to be down.
Re:Thinstation (Score:1, Informative)
It does also support client side floppies (as well as USB sticks, printers etc) AND you can make a perfect kiosk with Firefox. I have a couple of these myself and I'm very pleased. Kiosks seems important for a library...
Re:Sun Rays (Score:5, Informative)
I work in the Computer Science Department at the University of Copenhagen (DIKU) and our undergrad and grad student labs are made up of SunRay stations (I guess about 120 of them or so). They are run by 3 fairly slow SunFireV440 and require a number of application servers that can handle the load - in our case that is a pile of cheap Linux-boxes. With an LTSP solution you might be able to get by with fewer application servers as LTSP is able run applications locally.
The setup performs well for most tasks that our studens perform: browsing, compiling, emacs, lyx, etc. However getting audio from the application on a different server through the network into the V440 and finally to the earphone plug on the terminal is a challenge - and ofen more than the SunRay servers can handle.
They require very little attendance from the administrator - except for hardware failures everything can be handled remotely.
I don't know which prices you used for you calculations, but Sun just announced that SunRay software should be on the way for Linux [slashdot.org] which should bring the price on the servers down substancially.
Guard/restore cards (Score:2, Informative)
Not the be-all answer (no fun if you have to restart XXX times a day) but in conjunction with not-too-frequent patching (weekly?) and a decent anti-virus package it can be good.
Also handy for getting rid of content/screen savers/other unwholesome content that a user might download.
(I'm not a fan of windows, just relaying an experience)
http://www.juzt-reboot.com/ [juzt-reboot.com]
http://www.hddguarder.com/ [hddguarder.com]
Done That - 7 Times and Counting! (Score:5, Informative)
The system is completely GPL, requires no special hardware and I am currently working on an automated install system to make installation easier. If you are interested I can give you the email addresses of the directors that are using the system if you contact me: pete at elbnet.com.
Re:LTSP for Public Libraries (Score:5, Informative)
I personally found the LTSP for Libraries HowTo very useful, after reading it and a day's worth of work in it - our system happily serves Firefox [mozilla.org] to the terminals.
You should bear in mind though that serving applications like Office to each terminal will mean quite a lot of your bandwidth being taken up. If its running on the same physical network as the rest of your machines (which it *really* shoudn't be imho) then your staff are going to start complaining.
As for security concerns... provided the terminals arent served with an XTerm and you restrict the user logged in only to their home directory, firewall off the server and isolate it from the rest of your network (consider sticking it on a seperate V-LAN to the rest of your network) and keep the machine up to date. Then it will most likely be as safe as any other machine on your network.
Bryn
Koha Open Source Library System (Score:2, Informative)
Thin clients are the way to go (Score:1, Informative)
Most of the guys doing the late-night support didn't have any particular sys admin experience as far as I know. They got a brief intro and were off and running.
Macs with Netboot! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How about a nice friendly Mac? (Score:2, Informative)
There are definitely still sites that are incompatible with Mozilla. However, unless there are specific sites that you need that are incompatible (usually sites that require ActiveX, which for Windows there's at least an ActiveX plugin for Mozilla), this "incompatibility" thing just isn't a good enough reason anymore. And if people start to use Mozilla (or other non-IE browsers), most of the leftover web sites will come around...
Re:Sun Rays (Score:3, Informative)
The above post was cut and pasted parts of a report that I did for a company I'm working on getting funded.
The PC's need to be able to last at least 3 years in a call center environment before being passed down. While I agree that a library doesn't need this much power, if they went with it, they could probably get 5 years+ out of them without a problem. The need for 3+ years is due to cost of replacement. The other thing is, power for the reps. I'm an ex-technical support rep and have grown long tired of IT groups trying to reuse old machines. Too many applications to run, too many browser windows for different tools costs time to help customers. If the info isn't in front of the reps within 2 to 3 clicks, its too slow in my opinion.
Someone brought up an opinion on the SUN LCD's - they where priced as a package, not as a solution. Again, this was a report about the boxes, not monitors. The bulk of the sun price is actually the monitors. We could bring the price down a heck of a lot by choosing new ones. I'm also not pricing low end LCD monitors because in most instances, you get what you pay for. I need a monitor that can remain on for hundreds of hours at a time.
The reason for 19 inchers - reduced eyestrain. I've worked on 15's, 17's, 19's and a 21 inch screen. 19 was perfect. Some people can have lots of deskspace, others can have font the size of lego bricks if they want it.
"Aside from maintenance and support, the PCs are definately cheaper for the library. Which proves you (and most other slashdorks) just don't get it. Do you really (and I mean really) think that the cost of a solution is the purchase price of the equipment (hardware + software)?? Did you consider the maintenance of 40+ individual machines vs. 1 server? A sun ray deployment (even on Linux when this becomes available - if you absolutely MUST use Linux somehow, somewhere) is perfect for this." ---- exactly.
"Full cost: US$54,858, wich is 70% of your original price, not including volume discounts." -- I was going off of the Dell website at the time for that particular price. I also went off of Gateway and Compaq/HP - Dell was just what I chose to post.
"Symantec Corporate Anti-Virus: 50 licenses - US$1818 [symantecstore.com]" - I actually didn't see this on their website. I used their wizard which gave me the exact amount for 40 licenses instead of just giving me 10 extra for a discount - figures. Something to update.
The main thing here is that, in all situations that we could think of, the Sun Rays fit our needs better than PC's. We even considered building our own PC's for this situation. The bottom line is, if we want to be ultra affordable, we can get Windows boxes for around 40k'ish if we try, but then we need to hire IT types to handle the problems, that happen - its just not worth it to us.
Re:Sun Rays (Score:2, Informative)
1. They don't make any noise at all (no fan or disk), which is nice for a library.
2. Generally, you don't need to lock them down, because there isn't a black market for hot SunRays (though this might change with a Linux version of the server available)
3. By far the best feature, as mentioned before, is the smartcard. We exclusively use SunRays at work, and I can go over to another person's desk and plug in my card to show them what I'm doing, etc. A user could move about the library and not have to keep their jacket on a chair to call dibs for a computer. This makes more terminals available at any given time.
4. You will save money on electricity with the SunRays. They produce little heat, and if the power goes out, as long as the server has a UPS, all the terminals will come back right where they left off. This means you could turn off the breakers for the computer circuits after hours.
5. We haven't had any audio issues, because we're doing all of the processing on the server, not farming it out to other machines. And the headphone jack is right in the front (along with the mic, the only plugs in the front), so it's easy for users to plug in headphones so as not to cause a disturbance for the other library users.
6. The SunRay itself takes up almost no room, so you don't need to buy fancy desks with a sling for the tower, or resort to sitting a tower on the floor, where users get their feet into them. Just sit the SunRay on the desktop next to the monitor (3"w x 11"d x 12"h on my desktop).
7. Although I have not used this part of the server software, there are many options for anonymous login, registered login, max time, etc. so you can design and enforce an access policy easily.
Re:requirements are contradictory and a bit confus (Score:2, Informative)
So you don't want Windows, but you want IE, Word, Excel and Powerpoint?
I don't believe she said she didn't want Windows, but rather she was unafraid of a non-Windows alternative.
I'd personally try to push you away from supporting a lot of apps outside of just plain-jane internet access.
That would be suicide! At least in my library system. You see, a lot of the time people come into the library to use the computers because *they dont have one*. What this means is that they use computers for all sorts of things, from doing term papers on Word and using our printers to print them. Some come in and work on a spreadsheet for something they are working on at home. Powerpoint? Sure! Why not? What if they need to do a presentation for a class, or for their own business, and they'd like the resources of a library system at their backs while doing research on it. Again, people come to the library to use the computers for all sorts of reasons, and it would be quite presumptuous of us if we thought they only need Internet access.
My point is, the library is where information is collected with the tools to utilize all of it. Not just Internet access. Heck, we even provide free 'Computer Use' classes that teach people from the nearby trailor parks how to browse the web, or click with a mouse.
Hope this helps clear up a few things.
++Om
HP windows thin clients (Score:2, Informative)
Yes--I Ran a CyberCafe on Thin Clients (Score:2, Informative)
My advice (inclusive of some flamebait) is the following:
*. First, if you need/want help contact the WSU Lug or me (smutz) on the #wsulug irc channel on freenode.net
1. Use LTSP (add a separate Windows Terminal Server and rdesktop, if you need Windows)
2. Gentoo, SuSE and Mandrake seemed to work best for various reasons. Gentoo is the very best, but takes a lot more work to get configured.
3. Use ReiserFS (but not on RedHat). Never mind all the anti-reiser FUD. I've been using Reiser for years on sometimes as many as 30 servers, six in one area with power outages at least once every two weeks. Reiser really is badly broken on RedHat, but has honestly been vastly more reliable than Ext3. I am running mostly Reiser but Ext3 on a few systems and the Ext3 systems are periodically corrupted after power outages or cable kicks...sometimes irrecoverably. We've repeatedly unplugged our Reiser-based systems and never had any corruption, except for a physical disk error, a bad disk controller, and an overheated system (due to a dead fan).
4. Do not standardize on Mozilla!! It is by a huge margin, the number one crashing and account-disabling application we've used in the Cafe. The latest versions of Konqueror can replace it very handily if you put a lot of work into configuration: installing all the Netscape pluggins and setting it to say it's Internet Explorer (latest version). On the other hand, FireFox (light version of Mozilla) is reasonably stable and works great without much work into it. Konqueror has the advantage that, when it does crash, it doesn't lock up the whole user account, as does Mozilla or Firefox. Konqueror just closes as where Mozilla-based browsers (like FireFox require superuser intervention to kill it and let the user keep working) The latest versions of Konqueror have pretty much done away with the last rendering problems and stability is pretty good. Remember: Even Mozilla only locks up one user account, and doesn't effect other users. With LTSP, you can just hit reset and login as a different user..
5. If you are going to let people do word processing, set OpenOffice to automatically save as Microsoft Word format. It'll save you and your users TONS of headaches...because they never remember, if you tell them... And get rid of KOffice.. As much as I like it, people really do need MS Office compatibility and it doesn't reasonably offer that, yet. And, make sure you install Microsoft Fonts and/or set the default font to something Microsoft Word has that is similar.. I forget what we are using...sorry.
I'd love to offer more help but don't want to post my contact info in an open forum. You can find me and others who know of me on the wsulug IRC channel on freenode.net
Matthew C. Tedder
Re:Not a luser! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sun Rays (Score:2, Informative)
1. Didn't know about the 50 licenses for Norton. I'll correct that as soon as I can dig out of my email.
2. I didn't bloat the price of Norton to justify it. In my report, I priced PC's that where less than half the price of the Thin clients but still suggested the Thin Clients based upon a few things.
- Less power consumption and noise (probably the smallest bonus - also helps in case of power failure, more reps still active)
- Easy access to move across the network without having to drag the profile and personal stuff (email) across it with you.
- Extra security by allowing the smart cards to be used as employee badges
- Less of a need for IT staff (biggest money saver)
- Access to support. I don't need my staff to spend 20 minutes on staff to explain why they need an RMA number.
3. Dell has lowered the price since I've written this report (approx 3 weeks ago). I reconfigured on Dells site just for grins and the outcome was about the same. I also chose the SX270 due to its small footprint, therefor, I don't really want a full desktop taking up floor space or a CRT monitor taking up desk space.
Oh, and one last thing. I did the report for a company where I'm sharing the decisions on the support floor. I have two other people that share this responsibility and they are not your average CTO or manager types - they can read for themselves and do the same research everyone else did to make sure I was correct. I honestly went into this report thinking about desktops running FreeBSD or RedHat - changed my mind when I thought about the Sun Rays after awhile.
eMacs + NetBoot = thin client (Score:2, Informative)
Best of all, it's easy. OS X and OS X server are easy to learn for non-techies.
The Mac OS, as mentioned above, also supports Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. Event IE, though its a little out of date.