<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >Host Environment</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Connecting X Terminals to Linux Mini-HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Introduction" HREF="background.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Basic Host Configuration" HREF="configuration.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECT1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Connecting X Terminals to Linux Mini-HOWTO</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="background.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="configuration.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT1" ><H1 CLASS="SECT1" ><A NAME="SECTION2" ></A >3. Host Environment</H1 ><P >In an X environment, a host is a system that provides resources for an X Server. In a diskless workstation environment, the services provided by a host system will generally include session authentication using xauth and xhost, session management using xdm, file transfer services such as nfs and tftp which provide system fonts and a bootable image to be loaded into the X Terminal's RAM, and windowed client applications (e.g., Mozilla, Open Office). </P ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="HARDWARE" ></A >3.1. Hardware</H2 ><P >Our environment consists of 25 diskless workstations with 15 workstations using Mozilla, 6 worsktations utilizing a proprietary graphical application written in Java, and 4 workstations with an application running under a terminal emulator.The 6 java-based workstations use Gnome as their desktop environment. The remaining 19 workstations use FVWM2. To support that environment, we use 2 dual processor pentium 3's. One system has 1 gig of ram, the other has 500 megs. We have found that the stations running Gnome and Java use dramatically more memory and cpu than the stations running Mozilla. </P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECT2" ><H2 CLASS="SECT2" ><A NAME="SOFTWARE" ></A >3.2. Software</H2 ><P >In order to use Linux as a host for a network of thin client workstations, you will want to get the latest release of the the XFree86 X Windows System, FVWM2, and nfs-utils. Assuming that you are using an RPM-based distribution, you will want the following packages: Xfree86-font-utils, Xfree86-libs, Xfree86-devel, Xfree86, Xfree86-truetype-font, Xfree86-xdm, Xfree86-base-fonts, nfs-utils, fvwm2, fvwm2-icons. To verify installed packages on an rpm-based distribution such as Redhat, you can use "rpm-qa | grep (packagename)". To install or update those packages simply download them from their maintainer or from your installation media with and "rpm -Uvh (packagename)". Alternately, you can use a graphical front end to rpm such as gnoRPM to maintain the required packages are installed on your system. For debian-based systems, or for Gentoo, please consult your system documentation on apt-get and portage, respectively.</P ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="background.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="configuration.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Introduction</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" > </TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Basic Host Configuration</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >