[NMLUG] Fast X Distribution for older hardware.

[timothyemerick at yahoo.com (Tim Emerick)]

Jody,

I would be real interested on how you do this.  Is there a howto or something
online you could point me to?  I would love some browser only kiosks with all
of the usual plugins strewn around the workplace.

Tim

--- Jody Harris <havoc@harrisdev.com> wrote:

> Try it with 512MB first.  Do some load testing.  Use openbox, or one of 
> the other slim desktops, and see if there's even a need for more RAM.
> 
> I really don't know how many kiosks you could reasonable support with 
> 512MB.  Firefox may be a lot thinner than Mozilla, but any HTML parser 
> just takes memory -- and that's before you start loading plugins.
> 
> Oh, yeah, on really-thin clients (browser kiosks), I use Firefox AS the 
> desktop, and automate the connections with bash, ssh keys for logins, 
> and have the kiosk user automatically logged in at boot.
> 
> simple, simple, simple.  (Once you figure it out.)
> 
> jody
> 
> Tim Emerick wrote:
> > Thanks for that suggestion Jody.
> > 
> > As a matter of fact I do have a spare P4 Celeron 2.7ish GHZ machine with
> > 512MB ram looking to do some real work.  Wouldn't be a problem to throw
> some
> > more ram in it and see how it all works out.
> > 
> > Tim
> > 
> > --- Jody Harris <havoc@harrisdev.com> wrote:
> > 
> >>Tim,
> >>
> >>the machine I sit at and work from every day is a PII 366 w/288MB RAM, 
> >>20 GB hard drive and a burned up CD-ROM drive.
> >>
> >>I run SUSE LINUX 9.2, KDE, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Konsole, Thunderbird 
> >>and Kontact.
> >>
> >>How?
> >>
> >>When I log onto this machine, I log into SUSE's "failsafe," which gives 
> >>me X and an xterm.  From there, I ssh (-CX) to the AthlonXP 2500+/1GB 
> >>RAM in the back room, and kick off my KDE desktop with startkde.
> >>
> >>viola!  Life is good AND fast.
> >>
> >>Now, all you have to have is one good, fast, well endowed (RAM) machine, 
> >>and you can multiply it into a dozen good, fast kiosks.  You could build 
> >>the fast machine for less than $500.00, probably.  Depending on what you 
> >>limited the clients to, you might get away with less for all 12 
> >>"kiosks."  If you use a less greedy desktop, you're golden for sure.
> >>
> >>jody
> >>
> >>Tim Emerick wrote:
> >>>I have about a dozen machines with the following configuration:
> >>>PII-Celeron 300 Mhz
> >>>3 gig HD's
> >>>160MB RAM
> >>>3com 3c905b NIC
> >>>ATI Rage 3D on board
> >>>Yamaha Sound on board
> >>>
> >>>I've been really hopeful that I could recycle these into some decent web
> >>>browsing machines but have been fairly disappointed with the results up
> >>to
> >>>this point.
> >>>
> >>>I've used the Knoppix Live CD and the MEPIS (www.mepis.org) Live CD and
> >>>wasn't too impressed.  I've also installed the MEPIS distro onto the HD
> >>of
> >>>one machine just to see how it worked.  Again, fairly dismal.
> >>>
> >>>I want to know if I'm asking too much for these older machines or am I
> >>>running  packages that are too top heavy?  I know that both Knoppix and
> >>Mepis
> >>>are Debian/KDE based distros.
> >>>
> >>>Anybody have any experience with other distro's that might give me a
> >>speedy
> >>>yet user-friendly desktop and browser on these older machines?
> >>>
> >>>Thanks
> >>>
> >>>Tim
> 
> 
> -- 
> http://www.RealizationSystems.com/ -- start communicating
> http://www.GalacticSlacker.com/ -- read it and weep
> http://www.NMPerspective.com/ -- a Southwest Perspective
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