[OpenIndiana-discuss] Vnc to mimic SunRay behaviour, how??

[DormitionSkete@hotmail.com]

Would something like the "Linux Terminal Server Project" be helpful to you?

http://www.ltsp.org/

Theoretically, it should be possible to set something like this up in OpenIndiana, although I think you'd have a lot better user experience with Linux desktops.  

Ubuntu and OpenSuSE probably have the best LTSP implementations, although Scientific Linux (RHEL) is good, too.  I believe you can rip what you need off of SuSE's "EduLive" DVD to make it run on about any *nix variant.  There used to be a page on the LTSP site, I think, to tell you how to do it.

I'm pretty sure I've seen sites that have implemented it for BSD, so there shouldn't be any reason you couldn't do it with OI.  

We've been using LTSP for over ten years in our monastery.  We have a mix of small thin client boxes, and repurposed old PC's.  We ripped out the hard drives, and anything else we didn't need or want people to have, and put them to use as workstations.  You have one server to take care of, instead of many, many desktop machines.  

It's very popular in schools, where they have limited budgets.  Some of our thin clients are almost fifteen years old, although obviously, the newer machines are better.

One of the things I like is that I can work in my office, then go to our workshop, or our shipping room, or wherever, log in, and I have the exact same setup where ever I go.  Same Firefox bookmarks and history.  Same desktop, etc.  Very nice.

If this is of interest to you, feel free to write me off list, and I'll be happy to help you in any way that I can.  

I don't know what Sunrays were like, so please forgive me if this is way off base....

Cordially,

Peter, hieromonk



On Feb 27, 2013, at 8:23 AM, Hans J. Albertsson wrote:

> I'm pretty comfy with the way SunRays work: you login to a remote server with a full graphical UI.
> When you're due for lunch, you pull your card, and go get yer grub. In the lounge area, you plug yer card into a sunray on a temp desk, and just continue in the session you left behind. Performance was OK for what we used them for 5-8 years ago.
> 
> Alas, SunRays are a thing of the past for most of us. Oracle's price tag is just way too hefty for most people. Also, next SW and HW upgrade  we want better performance for medium-complexity graphics, so what to do instead?
> 
> Initial tests with GB net and modern fanless media PCs indicate that VNC might just be good enough for the next 5 years or so. But, as far as I can see, using Xvnc in OI151a7 leaves you with but two choices, open-for-all possibly passwordprotected persistent preassigned sessions or non-persistent but automatically assigned sessions.
> 
> Could one fiddle around with options and other things to simulate SunRay sessions in a better way??
> 
> I'd like to avoid having to preconfigure a set of logical displays for each of my over 200 users...
> 
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