Thin Client: New User Guide

2. Hardware and Documentation

2.1 Hardware

When you start, you will need at least this

• a computer to act as Server,
• a client computer, I unplugged the power to the hard disk and disabled the drive in the bios to emulate a diskless machine
• compatible network cards
• connection between computers, I used twisted pair ethernet with RJ45 terminators
  • For two computers a cross-over cable is sufficient, and saves another power point, the first computer shop I went to gave me blank stares, idiots !
  • For two or more clients, you need a hub, a kit with a 10 mb 4 port hub ,2 cards sells for under A$150, you can probably do better, I've had some success with $5 second hand cards, 3m cables for $6, a new hub for $40, a found monitor and a $60 pentium 75

2.2 Documentation

You may like to familiarise yourself with the linux documentation, specifically you can read (skim) for an overview the following :

• /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini/Diskless - a similar howto tackling this problem
• Networking Overview HOWTO - Networking capabilities of the Linux
• Ethernet HOWTO - Information on Ethernet hardware compatibility
• NET-3 HOWTO - How to configure TCP/IP networking under Linux.

Also you probably have in the /usr/doc/LDP/ directory

• The System Administrators' Guide
• The Network Administrators' Guide
• Linux Installation and Getting Started

The obligitory link

• http://www.magma.ca/~bklimas help for new linux users.

One last thing

• my network server is snoball , my client is elite and my (local)domain is gundog.net Replace with your computers names where applicable