From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Aug 7 22:17:48 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EA19F16A4DD for ; Mon, 7 Aug 2006 22:17:48 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nagylzs@freemail.hu) Received: from smtp.enternet.hu (smtp.enternet.hu [62.112.192.21]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 776EF43D45 for ; Mon, 7 Aug 2006 22:17:48 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nagylzs@freemail.hu) Received: from [62.112.202.89] (helo=[62.112.202.89]) by smtp.enternet.hu with esmtpa (Exim 4) id 1GADPq-000PX4-LG for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:17:42 +0200 Message-ID: <44D7BC25.2060908@freemail.hu> Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 00:18:13 +0200 From: =?ISO-8859-2?Q?Nagy_L=E1szl=F3_Zsolt?= User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.5 (Windows/20060719) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-2; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Cheap terminals for FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 07 Aug 2006 22:17:49 -0000 Hello, I need to setup an environment where some users (10 to 20 employees) will use terminals to run programs. They need to run a few popular programs: thunderbird, firefox, adobe acrobat, openoffice and gaim. This site will be a customer service. We decided to reduce the costs by using Open Source software and cheap terminal computers. This is a good solution because most of the users will read messages and images on the screen and they can share the same processor and memory. I know that I can setup a computer and use its X server as a terminal for another computer. This solution still requires new (or used) computers. I would like to reduce the costs to the minimum. Here are some key questions that I could not answer: - Is there a more cost-effective solution? (Something that I did not think of) - How much RAM will I need? Will FireFox Thunderbird and OpenOffice load shared objects and reduce the overall memory usage? Or should I reserve 256MB of memory for each client? - Do I need to use gigabit ethernet? Or is it enough to use a normal 100 Mbps wired network? I heard that there can be bandwidth problems when using many terminals, but I do not have experience. - Are there any pitfalls that I need to be aware of? It would be perfect to provide links to some articles or manuals - I do not need anyone to write detailed instuctions and do my job. I'm asking for help because the handbook was not very useful in this case. I only found this: http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/term.html#TERM-X It does not help too much, and there is no know-how. I need to know what hardware I need to buy. Thank you Laszlo