2008-06-20

HOWTO make Geode thin clients work on Ubuntu/Hardy LTSP

As summarized by Ace Suares, to validate my first rough upgrading instructions:

  1. Upgrade the packages in the LTSP chroot

    First become root:

    sudo chroot /opt/ltsp/i386

    Then add the repository, update and upgrade:

    echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/q-funk/ubuntu hardy main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list

    apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get clean

    APT will inform you that some packages cannot be authenticated. This is normal, since the PPA is not digitally signed. Simply answer Yes.

  2. Purge the transitional AMD driver

    apt-get --purge remove xserver-xorg-video-amd

    Then, exit the chroot:

    exit
  3. Update the LTSP boot image

    sudo ltsp-update-image

    On a 64-bit server, the correct command is:

    sudo ltsp-update-image --arch=i386
  4. Profit?

Happy Midsummer, everyone!

3 comments:

Martin Whitlock said...

At school we are running ltsp with Edubuntu 8.04 on a tight budget. It's a great system, very robust, and it copes well with our motley collection of old pcs and thin clients. I find that most things work "out of the box" or with a little tweaking.
I've just got hold of a Wyse 9150SE, which has AMD Geode GX, It boots nearly all the way but fails at the end with a blinking cursor. I've tried the update given here but it's still not working. So I wonder if you are familiar with this machine and any peculiarities it may have...

Very many thanks....

Martin-Éric said...

The instructions you'd rather try are these.

I've never tried Wyse products, but we're aware of them as they are among the competitors to our own ThinCan.

Martin Whitlock said...

Many thanks for your help. There's obviously something I should know but don't, because the output I'm getting is:
:~$ sudo ltsp-build-client --copy-sourceslist --accept-unsigned-packages
NOTE: adding default dist and components to security mirror:
http://security.ubuntu.com//ubuntu hardy main restricted
NOTE: Root directory /opt/ltsp/i386 already exists, this will lead to problems, please remove it before trying again. Exiting.
error: LTSP client installation ended abnormally


I appreciate your help, even with a competitor product! At the moment we have to make use of what we are given but I'd like to source some new thin clients that will work reliably and fast with ltsp. We currently have a few Neoware CA5 but they are s-l-o-w...

The prices of thin clients seem to rise rapidly as the specification increases. I wonder how much one needs to pay to get a reasonable speed for office applications ...?