Creating Citrix Thinstation CD

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Creating Citrix Thinstation CD
started by: SCOEIT

Posted by SCOEIT on Dec. 19 2006,02:48

I have hunted around the forums and have found bits and pieces of the answers I need, but not all in one place. Here’s my problem:

I support a Community Day School of 120 high students. They use a mix of about 30 old Dells, the newest being 4 year old Dell D600 laptops.

Instead of trying to fund the replacement of all those systems we are installing a Citrix Presentation Server 4.0 system. We’ve got two other Citrix farms already running. We will use the school’s old PC’s as thin clients.

My goal is to find a CD based Linux build that will boot virtually any of these systems from the CD and fire up the Citrix Program Neighborhood to show our available applications.

I want a CD boot for simplicity – a network boot requires a server, and I don’t want that complexity. And, I’d rather not have 20+ hard drives configured with a stripped down install of Windows XP to manage.

My problem has been finding the appropriate Linux package. I think DSL is the one. DSL is the first CD based package that fires up virtually every machine I put it in, and not in a basic mode. It fires them up in 1024x768 high color, even the ratty old Compaq I use to test.

The problem is that I don’t have a clue how to get the Citrix ICA client installed and working, then configure it to connect via Program Neighborhood to our published applications (We use the full PN Client, not the Web Interface), then configure the OS to boot only into the PN Client. And then, finally, remaster it all back onto a CD that can be duplicated.

My major limitation is that I have absolutely no knowledge or experience working in Linux.

Has anyone done this? Is anyone willing to help me figure out how? To summarize, I would have to figure out how to:

1. Install the Citrix Linux Client, the full client, not the Web Client. (Once I got it working I would then make the settings to attach to our Citrix server farm), and no, it doesn’t have to be the latest Citrix Linux Client – it only has to attach to our server farm and work.

2. Configure the OS to boot straight into the Citrix Program Neighborhood

3. Figure out how to take that configuration once it is working and remaster it onto a CD for duplication.

4. I’d need to know if I would have to install DSL to a hard drive to make the changes then remaster the CD.

5. The instructions would have to take my total lack of Linux experience into account.

I’m not opposed to going to a vendor to get the work done if that’s what is required and someone can recommend one.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks