1

Dr. V. N. Bedekar's Institute of Research and Management Studies, Thane, Maharashtra

2

Central Computer Facility, National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, NCR

3

Corporate Desktops - Nashik, Maharashtra.

4

Nuchem, New Delhi, NCR

5

Ambience Properties Ltd., Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

6

Kanwal Rekhi School of IT (KReSIT), IIT Bombay, Maharashtra.

7

West Bengal University of Technology, Kolkata, West Bengal

8

Bijra High School, Durgapur, Burdwan, West Bengal

9

Radhakantapur High School, West Midnapore, West Bengal

10

Future Foundation School, Sri Aurobindo Inst. of Culture, Kolkata, West Bengal.

11

West Bengal State University, Barasat, West Bengal.

FICTION #1

LTSP requires a fairly powerful server. And good thin-client hardware in India is fairly expensive.

FACT #1

a) An ordinary Intel Core 2 Duo desktop PC system (even assembled will do nicely) using a good motherboard with 2 GB of RAM and 120 GB hard drive is powerful enough to act as an LTSP servers with the addition of extra 1 - 3 GB of RAM for running 10 – 20 thin-clients. Incidentally RAM is very cheap these days. So even the desktops can be used as LTSP Servers.

b) LTSP *DO NOT* require the specialized hardware that the PC industry calls as "thin client". An old super-annuated Pentium III /Celeron 1GHz, 128/256 MB RAM with network card capable of PXE booting and a 15" SVGA monitor is like top-line hardware for the terminal hardware requirements.

FICTION #2

Implementing a LTSP “Server” means it involves an IT infrastructure that requires really highly knowledgeable system administrator, which would be expensive and hard-to-find skillset, unlike the traditional individual PC based approach where almost anyone can manage.

FACT #2

The cost of hardware acquisition is NOT the best parameter to judge the efficacy of LTSP servers. The manageability and maintenance (which is typically a life-cycle long cost) cost of LTSP is nearly ZERO in terms of cost of system administration / software maintanence / day-to-day operational overheads. Not so for individual PC based models.

Actual user experience based data included below:

a) At Jadavpur University, the first LTSP setup was done at the Dept of Sociology where the people using the system knew little beyond logging in and shutting down the system. Only telephonic support was provided to them on on-requirement basis. The system ran without any down-time for nearly 2 years, before it had to be physically touched (for replacement of a LAN card).

b) At Bijra High School's LTSP setup (1 server + 5 nodes [with capability to increase to 8, before requiring a RAM upgrade on the server] - the server is "managed" by the young geography teacher Kakoli Dhara and the Head Master (English teacher) Kazi Nizamuddin. The system is running fine without any problem from November 2007 onwards up to present date and is used regularly for class work.

A LTSP system is actually much like the *old* Hero Honda motorcycle advertisement - "Fill it! Shut it! Forget it!", it is designed to be used in places where reaching support personnel may be a problem.

FICTION #3

Purchasing desktop PCs gives us the flexibility of loading several flavours of GNU/Linux and experimenting with them. This will give the students a chance to see and feel the different flavours.

FACT #3

Sure! But here is a *more* realistic picture :

a) LTSP Server supports what is called "client images" - the Operating system + Graphical Desktop + Tools + Utilities and software. Its is this client images which the terminals access. Multiple client images based on different flavours of Linux are available.

For example, using a Fedora 12 based LTSP server, we can serve up an Ubuntu 9.10 based image to the terminal clients, the clients will have a Ubuntu Desktop instead of a Fedora Desktop.

Multiple OS flavour based client images can be placed on the server and deployed on-the-fly on the terminals / clients, thereby giving the students an opportunity to explore and experience the different flavours, while benefiting from the advantages of LTSP system.

FICTION #4

If the Server goes down for some reason, everything would goes for a toss, whereas one would never face such a problem with individual PCs with Linux installed. It's a single-point of failure.

FACT #4

This is clearly what is called FUD approach (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). *Actual* evidence of server and software stability proves a different story.

a) LTSP offers high availability using clustered LTSP servers with the software from Mille-Xterm project. If that is deemed to technically unreachable, then simply having a standby LTSP server which can be powered on, will do equally well, without any of the technical headaches (which are really not there after it has been setup once)

b) In a typical classroom/lab environment where a missing software library on PC will prevent a student to make use of a system ("ei machine-y ota nei... onno machine-y bosho" a typical refrain known to students and teachers alike) On an LTSP system, since all the software required are installed on the server, *ALL* terminals will get access to the same identical software and software libraries required for their training usage.

c) for the same reason, any software / Operating system update (typically the auto-updates from the Net) will be equally done for all clients, since it needs to be installed on only once on the server.

d) no requirement for expensive, branded UPSes for the client terminals. The terminals are plug-n-play devices, with no local storage, hence only surge and spike protectors are enough. By doing away with unnecessary UPSes we also address the issue of e-Waste from the discarded batteries of the same.

e) __NO__ requirement for Air Conditioning for the clients as they work well in ambient room temparatures, only the server may be kept in an AC environment and even that can be removed as long as the space is well-ventilated.

f) If required to add new terminals, unlike Desktop PCs there is no "Installation" procedure. Unpack, connect the peripherals, power it up and attach the network cable into the on-board LAN card and watch the new terminal boot into a fully configured environment.

g) for the LTSP server itself (even without clustering), using a 2 Hard Disk based mirroring helps prevent against most hardware failures that are related to harddisk failure.

h) the LTSP server itself can be imaged and made into a Recovery CD/DVD set, that will allow to restore it within 1 hour from any major hardware related failure, the Recovery CD/DVD will also ensure the ability to clone another new LTSP server of a similar hardware configuration.

FICTION #5

Users will install software they want and this will surely affect all the other users using the server.

FACT #5

A user can (if only allowed by the configuration of the LTSP server) make local change to the terminal's environment. However, the user can't do any sort of permanent damage to the server's settings. Any misconfiguration "created" by the user can be rectified by just rebooting the thin-client terminal once after the user has logged out.