LTSP (or alternative) and busybox and window manager and bro…

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Author: Jeremy C. Reed
Date:  
To: plug-discuss
Subject: LTSP (or alternative) and busybox and window manager and browser
My thin-clients are plenty fast enough to not use xdm to run the X apps on
the LTSP server.

But LTSP doesn't provide configs nor packages (or tarballs) for providing
a good window manager (twm is included in the
ltsp-x-core-4.3.99.901-0-i386.tgz).

A simple change for the configs is to run real startx (after making sure X
is configured) instead of X querying XDMCP.

Also, since not using xdm, it would be good to have a non-root user for
the user's login. (In this environment, I don't need any XDM logins since
there won't be different users nor different profiles nor any saved data.)

And LTSP doesn't provide mozilla or firefox.

I know the normal way is to just have the window manager and mozilla
installed and ran on the LTSP server, but I'd prefer that it all be
installed to the /opt/ltsp/i386 hierarchy and available via NFS so it is
ran on the thin-client.

One idea is to use ltspacp (contrib) to copy apps to the LTSP tree. But
this means you install the software on the server first and then the files
aren't registered for easy cleanup. (I need an easy solution so others can
easily update the /opt/ltsp/i386 software.)

I'd prefer to not have my LTSP server be a XDM server or to run any X
clients.

I'd prefer to use a real packaging system so I can easily add, remove and
query installed packages. (I am using LTSP 4.)

Also, the busybox tools often have limited functionality. I'd prefer to
use the real (coreutils, etc) versions instead.

Does anyone have any comments or advice on any of the above?

Should I use a different solution that LTSP 4?

Is there a ready-to-install window manager for LTSP 4?

Is there a ready-to-install firefox (or mozilla) for LTSP 4?

Are there ready-to-install replacements for busybox tools for LTSP 4?

I recall seeing LTSP discussion on this list, so I am asking here before I
look at the real LTSP list(s).

I am considering just using pkgsrc (which is a package build framework)
for creating my own LTSP alternative. Basically, the only parts I need to
copy from LTSP or recreate are: pxelinux and some simple booting configs.

Anyone here interested in helping or testing a new thin-client solution?

 Jeremy C. Reed
                         BSD News, BSD tutorials, BSD links
                         http://www.bsdnewsletter.com/


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