IRC chat logs for #ltsp on irc.libera.chat (webchat)


Channel log from 25 November 2017   (all times are UTC)

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11:00
<quinox>
nice debugging :)
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20:44
<LinuxGuy777>
Hello
20:45
<alkisg>
Hello
20:46
<LinuxGuy777>
Great someone here. I will begin composing my question. Please wait...
20:52
I had a LTSP setup using Ubuntu 10.04. I have started using 16.04. The 32-bit thin clients that are created in 16.04 are no longer optimized for my old PCs that I was using as clients. Can I create in Ubuntu 16.04 a 32-bit thin client that is based Ubuntu 10.04, and will the method of LTSP connection in Ubuntu 10.04 be able to connect to the Ubuntu 16.04 LTSP server?
20:53
<alkisg>
LinuxGuy777: it will be difficult to make that happen, e.g. it would take me 10 hours to do it and I'm an ltsp developer :)
20:53
What kind of client do you have, which cpu and how much ram?
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20:56
<LinuxGuy777>
My client hardware is Pentium 3, 500 Mhz, 256 M. I liked LTSP because I could use old hardware to run the latest versions of software.
20:56
<alkisg>
One client only?
20:56
<LinuxGuy777>
Two clients, same hardware.
20:56
<alkisg>
Ubuntu 16.04 does load with p4, 500 MHz, 256 MB RAM though
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20:57
<alkisg>
*p3
20:57
But firefox, gtk etc are much slower now
20:57
So even with 16.04 server and 10.04 client, it would go the same as with 16.04 server and 16.04 client, except for the graphics card driver
20:57
Which graphics card?
20:59
(some old cards now don't have good drivers and work with vesa, slower)
21:00
!cheap-client
21:00
<ltsp>
cheap-client: https://www.gearbest.com/tv-box-c_11262/nt1_windows~10/
21:00
<LinuxGuy777>
Yes, but like I said, the distribution is no longer optimized to run on older hardware. I have an FX5200 nVidia card in the clients. The most recent version of x.org do not work with FX5200 drivers. And the Ubuntu 16.04 kernel does not seem to run well on the old Pentium. The kernel and X.org software in ubuntu 10.04 worked much better.
21:00
<alkisg>
Btw, note that with < 100€ you can buy new clients
21:00
fx5200 nvidia is well supported with 16.04
21:01
So, 16.04 server and 10.04 client will have the same speed etc as 16.04 server and 16.04 client
21:01
The problem isn't the client software. It's the server software, it redraws many times now
21:01
E.g. firefox switched to cairo at some point. Most DEs now use compositing. Etc etc.
21:02
!precise
21:02
<ltsp>
I do not know about 'precise', but I do know about these similar topics: 'precise-i386'
21:02
<alkisg>
!precise-i386
21:02
<ltsp>
precise-i386: Ubuntu 12.04 compressed btrfs chroot to boot really old clients (non-pae, >=64MB RAM): http://ts.sch.gr/repo/livecd/images. You can find the image, a screenshot and a README there.
21:02
<alkisg>
I've done what you're asking at some point for 12.04
21:02
Booted 16.04 server with 12.04 client
21:03
But it doesn't make any difference for nvidia, 256 MB RAM, p3 etc
21:03
It would make a difference for sis or s3virge or 128 mb ram
21:11
<LinuxGuy777>
s3virge, thats old. I see even if I could get the client to boot an older image, it seems that a recent copy of Firefox would give me the problem of wanting to redraw more frequently.
21:11
<alkisg>
Yes
21:11
It's even worse. They use more pixmap caching, which is memory on the client, even if it's running on the server
21:12
And compositing is on by default, which double-buffers things on the client
21:12
Smoother, but with more ram and less speed
21:13
It's time to buy new clients. People here throw away p4, not p3, and we're in economic crisis... :)
21:18
<LinuxGuy777>
Can you recommend a web browser that is less resource hungry than Firefox?
21:18
<alkisg>
No, the problem is the web :)
21:19
You can't go back to 2000 and check the lighter web sites from then
21:20
P3 has a cpubenchmark speed of 100. A new computer with less than 100 euros has a cpubenchmark speed of 2000, which is 20 times faster. It's really not worth the trouble to try to optimize it.
21:20
Even a raspberry pi with 30 euros would be faster, although I don't recommend it, it's like 300 cpubenchmark speed.
21:22
<LinuxGuy777>
Yes, "everything" is upgrading. I think I will look into upgrading the clients then.
21:23
Thank you for your time. Much appreciated.
21:23
<alkisg>
It's silly that they are reimplementing the OS in ...javascript, but what can you do
21:23
You're welcome
21:24
<LinuxGuy777>
That is interesting, what do you mean by "reimplementing the OS in ...javascript".
21:24
?
21:25
<alkisg>
Well, apps run inside firefox using javascript
21:25
And they're trying to do the same things that apps were doing for years in C
21:25
...hence, 10 times slower...
21:27
<LinuxGuy777>
Ok, understood. Thank you.
21:27
<alkisg>
np
21:27
<LinuxGuy777>
I have another question.
21:33
I have seen it done on an early version of a client image for a Raspberry PI. Instead of booting from the LTSP server, the image installed on the SD card is a complete OS, and ran something like LDM to connect to the server. It there a method of installing a complete client image on a computer and connecting the client to the server just like a thin-client? It would be one step above a fat client, maybe one would call it a super-fat
21:33
<alkisg>
!x2go
21:33
<ltsp>
x2go: x2go is an NX-based suite of applications that allow logging in to a remote X server from any OS. It's much more efficient than VNC over slow network. More info: http://www.x2go.org/
21:33
<alkisg>
This can be used from any linux client or from windows
21:33
!local-boot
21:33
<ltsp>
local-boot: If you want LTSP fat clients on a low-speed network, you can put i386.img on e.g. C:\Boot\LTSP\i386.img and use this command line in pxelinux.cfg: APPEND ro initrd=ltsp/i386/initrd.img init=/sbin/init-ltsp root=/dev/sda1 rootflags=ro loop=/Boot/LTSP/i386.img; IPAPPEND 3
21:34
<alkisg>
This is how you put an image to a client and use it for speed
21:34
<vagrantc>
it doesn't save a lot of network resources though, does it? unless you're already doing fat clients with it?
21:34
<alkisg>
Select the one that suits you better...
21:34
x2go needs more network resources than fat clients
21:35
<vagrantc>
and the ltsp-image-on-disk approach only saves the OS download, which is generally a small part of thin client usage ... and fairly small for fat clients as well
21:37
<LinuxGuy777>
What I really like about LTSP is the automatic sound redirection, running programs from the server, but the sound comes through the client. Would x2go redirect sound, or would that have to be done in another step?
21:37
<alkisg>
I think x2go does support sound redirection, yes
21:38
Note that remote desktop solutions are slow for everyday use
21:38
That's why ltsp recommends fat clients nowadays, diskless clients with at least 512 mb ram
21:42
<LinuxGuy777>
Maybe what I should have said previously, is that I am interested in video playback over LTSP.
21:42
<alkisg>
LTSP fat clients need 1-2 mbps for video playback, same as normal installations
21:42
thin clients and x2go may need from 100 mbps to 5000 mbps...
21:45
<LinuxGuy777>
It all sounds good. Thank you for your time.
21:45
<alkisg>
!ltsp-manager
21:45
<ltsp>
ltsp-manager: LTSP Manager is a GUI tool that makes LTSP maintenance easy. It's the recommended way to install LTSP in common setups. More info: http://wiki.ltsp.org/wiki/Ltsp-manager
21:45
<alkisg>
This is the recommended method to install ltsp nowadays
21:46
<LinuxGuy777>
Oh, ok.
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22:03
<vagrantc>
alkisg: i'm looking at enabling selecting the compression type used with mksquashfs ... wondering if it would make sense to have a generic option to pass arbitrary mksquashfs-arguments rather than a specific compression-type that needs to maintain compatibility with various mksquashfs versions...
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22:03
<vagrantc>
but maybe this is a feature that is just bloatware ...
22:04
as a developer, i've found the lz4 compression type to be a nice trade-off between speed and compression
22:04
although not enabled in older kernel packages (e.g. 4.14.x in debian
22:05
i've also noticed that there's a -noX (do not compress xattrs) that isn't present in ltsp-update-image
22:05
not sure if it's intentional, or only introduced in recent mksquashfs versions
22:23
sbalneav1: might you have some time in the coming weeks to nudge some code a bit?
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