On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 19:24:56 -0500 William Park <opengeometry-FFYn/CNdgSA at public.gmane.org> wrote:

1. Does anyone know who is currently selling (Linux based) X-terminals?

X-terminal is the "canonical" solution for many situations. And, recent development in PXE network booting makes Etherboot, Netboot, Rom-a-matic, LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project), Mknbi-linux, Imggen, ... all obsolete. If you have 3c905 (what I have), then you can boot over network without above packages. I'm told you can also do that with Intel's ethernet card, as expected since PXE is Intel spec.

2. Do you think there is much demand for 2, 3, or 4 users logging onto single computer? ie. "Linux mainframe".

That is, multiple sets of monitors, keyboards, and mouses hooked up to single computer; much like serial terminals, but with XDM. This would be primarily aimed at home market, where you want to have one computer serving 2, 3, or 4 users, but don't want to buy 2, 3, or 4 separate computers.

Any comments or insights would be appreciated.

William, An X Terminal is nothing more than a machine with a monitor, keyboard and mouse that puts up an X11 display. You do not care what the OS is. What Linux gets you is a use for all those old Pentiums that everybody wants to get rid of, that otherwise, are running perfectly. If the hardware is okay, Linux provides an X display. My experince from quite a few years ago is that X Terminals are rather expensive for something that is little more than a dumb terminal. As far as a central computer is concerned, there is no free lunch. If your users require 256MB each, your four-user machine requires 1GB of memory. Multiple processors sound to me like a good idea. -- Howard Gibson hgibson-MwcKTmeKVNQ at public.gmane.org howard-42qnO8ePF9cV+D8aMU/kSg at public.gmane.org http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml