What goes around comes around (to coin a phrase – with another) and in the computing world basic concepts can be no different.

Unlike the high powered, self contained desktop units of today early computing functionality was delivered from a central unit (a mainframe) which shared it’s resources to client terminals, the end user was basically presented with a screen and keyboard, no internal storage and no local control over the software. The generic term for this type of configuration is a Thin Client system.
Popular Thin Client solutions for business use outside of computer labs and academic institutes were systems from Wyse (I used to support Wyse systems in the mid 90′s). Wyse terminals presented the user with green screen text via serial data transmission (as oppose to ethernet) and were adopted for use around the National Health service (hospitals & doctors surgeries). Modern day Wyse systems are still the norm around the medical world and although hooked up around more recent software are still based on the same original concept.

There are many advantages of a Thin Client system, central admin, security and software control are the obvious big ones however when transposed to a PC environment you also enjoy a substantial drop in required end resources. A virtual desktop booting across the network needs no internal hard disk and associated processing power, thus prolonging the useful life of existing hardware and substantially reducing TCO. The Linux Terminal Server Project adds thin-client support to Linux servers.

Ubuntu offers a superb LTSP solution and is easily configured to deliver any desktop flavour to your client base from a single server, all you need is a suitably equipped dual NIC box with a high end CPU and 128MB of RAM per client to enjoy an easy, cheap and empowering solution in environments where a generic image is required, for example schools and internet cafes. The image cannot be modified permanently as a fresh instance is delivered at every re-boot.

To test flexibility of Ubuntu’s LTSP system I recently ran local boot tests at home from a Parallels Virtual machine on my low end MacBook Air. The image was delivered to my Dell Mini across a standard BT home network through the virtual network card on the VM, on via Wi-Fi through the MacBook Airport and into the BT home-hub, out of the hub across the wireless connection to an Airport Express which fed it back out and up into the Dell’s ethernet port through a cabled 4 port Netgear mini-travel switch. Cabled infrastructure would obviously be recommended but as the image loaded up quite happily my tests prove surprising resilience for use in a Wi-Fi environment.

TooMuchGreen can provide LTSP solutions for your business with any flavour of Ubuntu delivering a standard or bespoke desktop configuration, feel free to contact us for details.