The Linux Terminal Server Project (ltsp)adds thin-client support to Linux servers. For educational environments, LTSP lowers hardware costs by enabling the use of older or less powerful machines as thin clients, as well as reduced administration overhead by having only to install and maintain the software on the server. When a workstation fails, it can simply be replaced without data loss or re installation of the operating system.Thin client computing has been around for a long time in the UNIX world.
Although the implementation has evolved quite a bit, the concept has remained the same:
1.The thin client only takes care of the basic functions like display, keyboard, mouse and sound.
2.The server does the heavy weightlifting. All the applications run on the server, and they simply display on the thin client.
The openSuSE KIWI Image System provides a complete operating system image solution for Linux supported hardware platforms as well as for virtualisation systems like Xen Qemu or VMware. KIWI features distribution independent design, support for virtual systems, network deployed images, live CDs, thick clients and now with kiwi-ltsp diskless clients too.KIWI-LTSP utilizes ease of deployment and management provided by KIWI to bring our awesome distribution openSUSE to everyone that wishes to use thin client computing.
What is required
* Any decent desktop/server with about 1 GB of RAM per 5 thin clients.
* Thin client can be any PC which is PXE boot capable, 128 MB RAM is desired, but you can test lower and see if it works for you.
* There is a limit to number of clients that can boot up from a single server, A server with 4Gb of ram can host 60 thin clients.
* LTSP server/clients are best assembled on their own network. Do not use production server for experimenting with kiwi-ltsp.
* openSUSE 11.0 and above i386 DVD media or an iso image. (Not required if using prebuilt image. Any other media will not work, including internet repository)
* Server connected to the internet for getting the packages to install.
* SSH, tftp, dhcp, nfs etc services running and ports open in firewall on the server. It is best to disable firewall on the interface serving LTSP.
Download rpm package here