ltsp clients
Forum: User Feedback
Topic: ltsp clients
started by: ddaniels
Posted by ddaniels on Jan. 22 2005,02:34
Greetings,I run a K12LTSP network in my English class. I regularly get old computers donated to the class but I've had trouble getting them to play nice on the network. I did full linux installs on the soon-to-be clients and set X -query 192.168.0.254 in the .bash_profile to call on the main server to access the network.
A student recently installed DSL .9.1 on a beater box PII in under 15 minutes! I was thrilled! Here it was! A way to squeeze more life out of throw away machines as clients on an LTSP network... but after much fiddling we couldn't get the DSL to call 192.168.0.254 without gettin errors of /tmp/X.11xxx does not exist or is suspicious. And file 1777 is not correct (forgive the garbled error message, I'm not sitting in front of the error message now).
Long story short, there are thousands of old PI and PIIs that could be recycled into a K12LTSP network if I(we) can sort out how to get DSL to play nice on a network using an X -query.
I know that Africa and S. America are using k12ltsp in a big way... getting DSL to act as the client bridge could really significantly expand old computer usage!
You can read more about other client installs to make it easier to build K12LTSP networks here:
< http://dennisgdaniels.com/tiki-in....fresh=1 >
Any tips on the X -query problem are most welcome!
best!
Dennis
Posted by ke4nt1 on Jan. 22 2005,10:22
Just a thought..If you find this works for you,
we can easily make a remaster to include this for you automatically...
remember, this is only a test. A real version would be seamless.
After booting up DSL, grab the dsl-dpkg.dsl extension, and the
XFree86.dsl extension. They are in the repository..
< http://www.ibiblio.org/pub....pkg.dsl >
< http://www.ibiblio.org/pub....e86.dsl >
Installing the dsl-dpkg.dsl file is easy.. Open up emelfm, your file manager ,
highlight the dsl-dpkg.dsl file, and click the myDSL button at the top center of emelfm. ( alternate - from shell prompt - type ' mydsl-load dsl-dpkg.dsl ' )
This will install the dpkg files, and make your system writable.
Basically, for this test, we can install the Xfree86.dsl like any other extension
open emelfm , the file manager, highlight the file, and click the myDSL button .
( alternate - from shell prompt - cd to /home/dsl,
and type ' mydsl-load xfree86.dsl ' )
This Xserver will respond to the X -query request.
It works for me here anyway, without an LTSP server available.
There are some instructions for setup in the xfree86.dsl.info file,
found in the same place where you obtained the extension.
Here's a walkthrough for the instructions for Xfree86..
Now that they are installed , go into your /home/dsl directory,
Look in the Xfree86_config_files directory, and copy the file for vesa support
to a file named /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
Next, grab the file called .xserverrc_for _xfree86 , and copy it to a file
called /home/dsl/.xserverrc ( it will overwrite - it's OK )
( you will need to click on the "H" to see hidden files in emelfm )
Next, exit X by using ctrl-atl-bksp .
At anytime, you can type startx to see if your X desktop works.. it should.
At the prompt, type this.
XFree86 -query 192.168.0.254
The xserver should respond to the request..
If you see the /tmp/.X11-unix issue, the command
' chown root.root /tmp/.X11-unix ' seems to work for me.
Let us know if this works for you.
If at anytime, you want the XKdrive server back, simply exit X,
and at the prompt, type xsetup.sh to reselect your xkdrive options.
then running startx at the prompt will put you back where you started.
73
ke4nt
Posted by dougvega on Jan. 30 2005,18:03
Hello DSL team ; any chance xfree86 would be a feature in future releases , I have collected a few pent 1 and would like to take them to El Salvador and set-up an LTSP network with some sort of back-up distro on every machine in case the network fails and DSL is ideal because of its size I'll apreciate your response .
Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 30 2005,18:46
No chance.XFree86 uses up too much disk space because the #1 rule of DSL is that the livecd must be 50MB in size or smaller in order to fit on a business card sized CD-R.
You can always install the *.dsl file, though.
Posted by dougvega on Jan. 30 2005,20:54
I tried the tips on the first reply post to the dot but I was unsuccesful so I decided to try apt-get for fun and followed it as if I was installing the xwindows system for first time and it worked now I can log unto my ltsp server with an X -broadcast I am pretty happy about this
Thanks DSL
Posted by ddaniels on Jan. 31 2005,00:14
We too had tried the suggested steps above by ke4nt1 and failed. Was your command apt-get install xwindows? I just tried that on FC3 box and it came back as application not found. Could you share the exact commands so that I can hand the instructions off to one of my assistants? Thanks!
When this works, DSL will certainly rock the LTSP and low-end client world! I regularly turn away PI donations because I had so much trouble with them playing nice with X! Many thanks to all!
Dennis
Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Jan. 31 2005,01:48
Well, fedora does not use Debian's packaging tool, apt. It uses RPM's instead.With Debian, you just do "apt-get install x-window-system", but this can be dangerous with DSL, so just use the XFree86.dsl from the testing area of the repository. Remember that it is not a "click-n-play" extension.
Follow the instructions in the info file.
As for rpm based distro, I don't use/like them, so I'm really not any help. Sorry.
-J.P.
Posted by ddaniels on Jan. 31 2005,02:09
Thanks for the quick reply! Two things
first
apt-get works for Redhat... I've been using it for years
second
We did try the XFree86.dsl, and the instructions offered initially, but it didn't fly
I'm looking for a distro that is small, fast and easy to install for really old machines so that I can turn them into clients on K12LTSP networks ... schools are spending $100M dollars on computers for no good reason... ergo the interest in quick client creator...
DSL has most of what I'm looking for! I want to give a demo of a client creation to a group of teachers in March... right now SuSE has the best one click installer but I'd really like to use DSL as it is SO fast!
Many many thanks to any further assistance into getting DSL to play nice with LTSP!
thanks!
Dennis
Posted by dougvega on Jan. 31 2005,03:00
as I explained in my previous post it was a fluke I followed the steps ofered at the begining of the thread but when I tried X-broadcast it appeard that it was going to loggin but it came back with an error in the config files (I forgot which one) so I tried apt-get install X-window-system and answered the questions for my video chipset and voila it happend (neomagic on a thinkpad 380) .I have restarted the server a couple of times downloaded more software from myDSL ,started the tinyX server and no problems the only thing I have noticed is some broken dependencies but I think I can repair them or work around them ,
Posted by dougvega on Feb. 05 2005,22:18
running dsl as a thinterminal has its problems for instance because of the ext2 filesystem it is prompt to fail if a user just turns the machine off we need a way to change ext2 to ext3. to avoide this kind of problems.
Posted by ke4nt1 on Feb. 06 2005,00:13
Have you tried running the journaling command ?tune2fs -j /dev/hdXx ( Xx = your drive partition )
( little J - not an i )
That should convert your ext2 to an ext3 type partition.
Unintended cold boots will recover without multiple scans and further reboots.
Let us know..
73
ke4nt
Posted by dougvega on Feb. 06 2005,03:49
will I have to change fstab to reflect the new filesystem??
Posted by dougvega on Feb. 09 2005,03:18
Allright then the dreaded happened DSL hangged and the only way out was a cold boot when it restarted it went through the hdcheck routine fixing inodes or something like it as it went along but my Xserver would not start i tried xsetup.sh but nothing I finally did another soft reboot the original x configuration screen came back and I was able to get my Xfre86 server again.
There should be a better way to recoup after a hard or accidental reboot is there???
Posted by ddaniels on Feb. 09 2005,05:03
Well, we've not had any luck at all with getting DSL to play nice on the LTSP server... we've been following along but we're clearly missing something...Ideally the process would be relatively easy
install a tiny OS
adduser ltsp
gedit /home/ltsp/.bash_profile
add
X - query 192.168.0.254
so when any user logs in as ltsp they go straight to the LTSP server...
of course there are a couple of other steps (you can see them here: < http://dennisgdaniels.com/tiki-in....id15474 >
I'm thinking about paying for help to get a distro made that will do exactly this... any takers
best!
Dennis
Posted by dougvega on Feb. 09 2005,14:59
I think I know where you are getting stuck , try this : when following the instructions offered by user "ke4nt1" , the first part where he says "Look in the Xfree86_config_files directory, and copy the file for vesa support to a file named /etc/X11/XF86Config-4"
I added the contents of the second file to the contents of the first file so it became one big new file .
the part where he said
Next, grab the file called .xserverrc_for _xfree86 , and copy it to a file called /home/dsl/.xserverrc
I erased the content of the old one and replaced it with content of the new one
according to the post that should have done it but it did not so without changing a thing I did a "sudo apt-get update" and then
"sudo apt-get install x-window-system" you sould also apt-get
discover -- hardware identification system
mdetect -- mouse device autodetection tool.
read-edid -- hardware information-gathering tool for VESA PnP monitors
that will help you identify your hardware
after it finishes downloading all the packages it should ask you to configure your video card and mouse if it doesn't do a "sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86 . you should know your video card specs for this ( let deb config handle the configuration when it asks you to ) when it finishes reboot your machine just to be sure . I think the reson it works by doing this is that the explanation offered by K4nt1 is missing a step or something and the xfree86 package has the missing link.
I am using a 155 megahertz thinkpad and to log to my ltsp server I use X -broadcast manually I hav not got around doing it from the boot prosess and I am still not satisfied with my new created ext3 if I use DSL in a clasroom I know students are going to try to turn of machines manually and they are going to be calling me to fix the xserver again .
letme know if it helps.
Posted by dougvega on Mar. 10 2005,17:40
has the xfree add-on conf changed in dls 1 ? I can't find the etc/x11/xfree86 or it's not nessesary anymore to add the xfree86 pluggin, and also I would like to do a remaster with at least the names of the icons on fluxbox in Spanish where do I change those names so they are recognized by elementary student in a spanish speaking country.I would appreciate any help.