The current room has 25 i333MHZ PCs, on 10MB BNC. network is a queer mix of 2 x Novell 3.12 servers, with an NT proxy & Wins server. The clients run under Win98.
As your clients are already thick, you might as well use them as thick to start with, which saves some server power and configuration. Load them all with identical copies of your chosen Unix variety, choose one machine as a master and keep the others in sync using "rdist". You need a server for all the home directories and the password file: distribute the home directories as a NFS mount and the password file using YP/NIS. We use Netscape and StarOffice, give them all shell logins and use pine for email. Use Apache on the server both for your intranet and as a proxy server, upgrade to Squid if your traffic is high. You can then expand the server to deal with thin clients, for which old 486-33's are adequate, though you need at least 12MB client RAM to avoid too much swapping. Server configuration is a more complicated when your clients are thin, but if client RAM is under 32MB you need to run the apps on the server.
I was telling the boss about how old kit could recycled using a thin client and he said if I can get the job done for Ł7K, I can go ahead. He would like to be able to free up 12 machines to re-distributed around the school.
Obviously I'd like to get a Linux box in there as the main server for the thin client end.
It works for thick clients too. It could easily become your main school filestore, it can serve all platforms, files, Web, email, printing - but not Citrix. However, if you really need it, an adjacent Citrix server can be accessed from your thick or thin clients using X based ICA.
Now, I could go down the Citrx route - if I can ever afford the licences, but what about having another server and using VNC, VMWare or even Wine.
Citrix is very expensive, but configuring VMware for multiple concurrent access is a complex job.
Can I do the job with only Ł7K: new server, CAT5 cabling, (thin client) licences, probably more memory for each machine, new NICs and so on.
Easily, I'd say, but don't say so, keep the surplus, be useful for black-market petrol. Our last batch of ISA NIC's was four pounds each. Spend money on Netgear 10/100 switches, Intel EtherExpress 10/100 cards in the server, maybe a RAID array, though that'll chew up your 7K. But tell me, since when have "licences" cost money? -- Christopher Dawkins, Felsted School, Dunmow, Essex CM6 3JG 01371-820527 or 07798 636725 cchd@felsted.essex.sch.uk