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2008/11/12 Richard Brown <rich@xxxxxxxxxxx>: > If we went fully Linux with purpose built software to manage the > company, what advantage would thin client make please? Local clients > would need to process the database, and also emails, web browse, word > processor etc. It's a trade off of where the processing occurs and network activity/access. With thin client the client become a dumb graphical terminal (plus sound) and the server does all the work and runs all the programs (it's pretty much a return to the old days of terminals on a shared big computer). Thus you can use low spec or older, cheaper, greener machines or special thin client devices, they don't even need discs as you can arrange remote boot with every thing running off the server. However the server needs to be able to run all the programs concurrently and have enough storage; with applications that are not processor or IO intensive that is not an issue, though you may want one or 2 thick clients to run programs like CAD or media editing. The network traffic may increase, though with only input events and display updates flying around it can be low and there are various protocols like NX that are more efficient. I guess you could have a single dedicated network connection from the server to a file or database server which would be better than all the clients doing file/db access on the main network but I'm guessing here. As the server becomes the place where all the programs run you get simplified admin/deployment but it is also a single point of failure. Though I guess you can reduce that with care. I think you could even mix and match, with a basic thin client set-up and some users running windows apps in a virtual box or on thick clients. This really all works because of the design of the X windowing system which all Linux apps use. LTSP mostly provides a way to get everything going, e.g remote boot. If you want to play I understand edubuntu includes a LTSP server and makes it easy to set up networks. Last time I look the LTSP project was very well run with a good site. You could perhaps ask on the schoolforge.org.uk mail list as several people there have experience of using LTSP. -- Steve Lee Open Source Assistive Technology Software and Accessibility fullmeasure.co.uk -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html