View Source: DisklessWorkstation - Waikato Linux Users Group

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A DisklessWorkstation is just that - a computer that has no local disks. It normally implies some sort of network booting ([PXE], [TFTP] etc) to get the boot image, then booting and mounting its root FileSystem over [NFS] or from a RamDisk image. Modern network cards have [PXE] enabled bootroms on them already - the Intel EEPRO/100 and recent model Realtek 8139 chipsets are examples of these. Alternatively, a floppy disk can be used to bootstrap the system, which then does a network boot; or a live-filesystem cdrom such as [KnoppixLinux] can be used.

A ThinClient is a class of DisklessWorkstation, but instead of having a local FileSystem, it tends to log straight into a TerminalServer.

There's several good projects to set up [DisklessWorkstation]s. [LTSP|http://www.ltsp.org/] is very full-featured setup, which involves a lot of application support. Its used by the [K12] educational network in the US. [PXES|http://pxes.sourceforge.net/] is another one, which is slightly simpler to setup, but doesn't have the range of support that LTSP has.

See DisklessWorkstationNotes for the lowdown.

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CategoryNetworking

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Last edited on Tuesday, August 19, 2003 12:13:09 pm by DanielLawson

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