<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Feb 18, 2008 3:31 AM, Alastair Johnson <<a href="mailto:alastair@solutiontrax.com">alastair@solutiontrax.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
You could do that, but unless you're only running a few clients it'll be much<br>more resource hungry than the terminal server, and probably won't save you<br>much on licensing.<br><br>The terminal server has a single Windows instance with a relatively small<br>
resource increase for each client. Each virtualised Windows is a full Windows<br>install so it needs the resources (disk, memory, CPU etc.) to support that.<br>It doesn't matter if you're using VirtualBox, VMware, QEmu, Xen since they're<br>
all just providing a virtual machine. So the virtualised route probably needs<br>more hardware resource to run on.<br></blockquote><div><br>I think Xen cloned file systems will help with disk resources. <br>They are one my list of things to try.<br>
I may be disappointed or have misunderstood some of the below<br>My understanding is you do a basic install on a file system.<br>Then you make a read only copy.<br>clients do a unionfs (hmm, this probably only works with linux filesystems)<br>
mount where the client has its own read/write filesystem layered on top<br>of the shared read only fs each client only stores the blocks that are different<br>from the read only file system.. <br><br><br>Hmm. I wonder if there is a file system independent way of doing this that<br>
does cover windows file systems.<br><br>It's a lazy allocation method disk blocks are only allocated<br>when they are written, you run this risk of a run away process grabbing all<br>available disk and other processes having hard failures when they run out<br>
of available disk. There are also performance and stability issues.<br><br>Most desktops do have more resources than they really need. <br>
So one hefty server can often do the work of several desktops.<br><br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>I'm no expert, but you probably need a Windows license for each VM too, at<br>
about the same cost as your client access license for the terminal server. So<br>you might save yourself the cost of Win 2k3. I'll leave you to work out the<br>costs for your installation, but I don't think it'll save you much if<br>
anything.<br></blockquote><div><br><br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>Now if you can get the apps to run under Wine, or find an equivalent to run on<br>
linux...</blockquote><div><br>I rarely see anything I need that works for me under Wine,<br>don't get me wrong. there's lots of stuff I never use, that does work with wine,<br>but when I look at a specific app I really need it's usually not there.<br>
maybe coming soon, but not there now.<br><br>and the "equivalents" do work for me<br><br>Wish I could talk more users into the "equivalents".<br>
But many of them are still being stubborn.<br>
<br>
Some times they do need obscure apps for which there is<br>really no "equivalent" that does meet<br><br>And I do understand their resistance to learning to use a new tool<br>when they have already put a lot of time, money, and energy<br>
learning to use the tools they are comfortable with.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br><div><div></div><div class="Wj3C7c">
<br>On Thursday 14 February 2008, Chris Fanning wrote:<br>> Hi,<br>><br>> I imagine that I'm not the only one in the list that has to deal with<br>> windows applicactions. Although life would be a lot easier without<br>
> them, it doesn't look like we can escape from M$ completely (at least<br>> for the moment).<br>><br>> In my case, I have users sharing the same gnu/linux box runnng KDE<br>> sessions and a seperate w2k3 server running window-terminal-server for<br>
> windows apps via RDP.<br>><br>> Yesterday a colleague opened his xfce sessions via freeNX and<br>> installed Virtualbox. Within 15 minutes he had installed XP. And that<br>> got us thinking about the need for the w2k3 server and the expensive<br>
> terminal server licences.<br>><br>> Virtualbox uses SDL (right?), that means we can circumnavigate RPD<br>> (and the licences), couldn't we?<br>> Each user could have his on virtual windows running on his kde desktop.<br>
><br>> After reading that SUN has recently bought Virtualvox and intends to<br>> use it with xen, we're wondering<br>> Resource management of the virtaulbox instances would be important.<br>> Perhaps this is where Xen comes into it. but how?<br>
><br>> I was hoping someone on the list might have an opinion on this.<br>><br>> Thanks.<br>> Chris.<br>> ________________________________________________________________<br>> Were you helped on this list with your FreeNX problem?<br>
> Then please write up the solution in the FreeNX Wiki/FAQ:<br>> <a href="http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=FreeNX_FAQ" target="_blank">http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=FreeNX_FAQ</a><br>
> Don't forget to check the NX Knowledge Base:<br>> <a href="http://www.nomachine.com/kb/" target="_blank">http://www.nomachine.com/kb/</a><br>><br>> ________________________________________________________________<br>
> FreeNX-kNX mailing list --- <a href="mailto:FreeNX-kNX@kde.org">FreeNX-kNX@kde.org</a><br>> <a href="https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/freenx-knx" target="_blank">https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/freenx-knx</a><br>
> ________________________________________________________________<br>________________________________________________________________<br> Were you helped on this list with your FreeNX problem?<br> Then please write up the solution in the FreeNX Wiki/FAQ:<br>
<a href="http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=FreeNX_FAQ" target="_blank">http://openfacts.berlios.de/index-en.phtml?title=FreeNX_FAQ</a><br> Don't forget to check the NX Knowledge Base:<br> <a href="http://www.nomachine.com/kb/" target="_blank">http://www.nomachine.com/kb/</a><br>
<br>________________________________________________________________<br> FreeNX-kNX mailing list --- <a href="mailto:FreeNX-kNX@kde.org">FreeNX-kNX@kde.org</a><br> <a href="https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/freenx-knx" target="_blank">https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/freenx-knx</a><br>
________________________________________________________________<br></div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Drew Einhorn