home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Xref: sparky comp.sys.sun.admin:5092 comp.unix.admin:4380
- Path: sparky!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!att!ulysses!ulysses.att.com!cjc
- From: cjc@ulysses.att.com (Chris Calabrese)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun.admin,comp.unix.admin
- Subject: Re: Administration & setup of X-terminals vs Diskless Workstations
- Message-ID: <17021@ulysses.att.com>
- Date: 30 Jul 92 14:08:37 GMT
- References: <1992Jul29.164247.27733@trantor.harris-atd.com>
- Sender: netnews@ulysses.att.com
- Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ, USA
- Lines: 50
-
- Craig Carpenter (ccarpent@dpcs_gt1.ess.harris.com) writes:
- >
- >--
- >While there are several companies producing X terms, many should not present
- >any problem at all. Our group is purchasing a couple of Human Design
- >Systems(HDS)
- >X terms, we have had some in on eval and have had no problem in using
- >them.
- >
- >The x term question really is how good is your network, x terms needs 100%
- >of the information from across the network. dependent on your main memory,
- >you can alleviate some of it. Also, most Xterms have local window managers
- >of the Open Look and Motif variety. The X term startup involves having a
- >tape of fonts and other commands mounted on a server somewhere and the X term
- >knowing where that is.
-
-
- We've got around 80 X terminals and about the same number of
- workstations (though none of them diskless).
-
- We've found the X terminals _much_ easy to administer, but the
- question of performance and net/host requirements is hard to nail
- down. A lot depends on your environment.
-
- In our environment, the X terminals actually use _much_less_ net bandwidth,
- since most of our work is data-intensive (the X terminal is only
- showing the command line oriented terminal output a
- data-processing program that outputs a small file of statistics from
- a 1 gig file, while a workstation would have to take the whole gig
- over the network unless it's operating in 'X terminal mode').
-
- For these types of data-intensive programs, CPU time will often be
- about the same on the server whether you do it on an X terminal or
- over the net on a workstation.
-
- On the other hand, workstations can win big for programs that have a
- moderate ammount of data, but real hefty graphics (CAD/CAM),
- or are compute intensive (compiles, CAD/CAM, scientific computing).
-
- Our servers are so reved up to handle the big applications that they
- don't even notice the compiles, mail readers, news readers, etc.
-
- Other people down the hall from us (who do mostly software
- development) are just as happy with the opposite setup - comparatively
- tiny servers with diskless workstations with lots of RAM.
- --
- Name: Christopher J. Calabrese
- Brain loaned to: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
- att!ulysses!cjc cjc@ulysses.att.com
- Obligatory Quote: ``pher - gr. vb. to schlepp.
-