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Bug 84365 - LTSP-4.1.1 binary packages for JavaStation JK thin clients
Summary: LTSP-4.1.1 binary packages for JavaStation JK thin clients
Status: RESOLVED LATER
Alias: None
Product: Gentoo Linux
Classification: Unclassified
Component: New packages (show other bugs)
Hardware: Sparc Linux
: Low enhancement (vote)
Assignee: Jason Wever (RETIRED)
URL: http://www.ltsp.org/
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2005-03-06 20:34 UTC by bintut
Modified: 2006-05-29 21:31 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---


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Description bintut 2005-03-06 20:34:45 UTC
[1]LTSP is an add-on package for Linux that allows you to connect lots of low-powered thin client terminals to a Linux server. Applications typically run on the server and accept input and display their output on the thin client display. LTSP is available as a set of packages that can be installed on any Linux system.

With this, I would like to make use of our old [2]JavaStation JK to boot via LTSP-4.1 on a Gentoo Linux x86 server.  Due to the fact that I don't have a Sun Sparc machine to compile and build a binary LTSP-4.1 packages for my JavaStation JK, I am seeking help for whoever has a Gentoo Linux server on a Sun Sparc machine to make a binary ebuilds of LTSP-4.1 for JavaStation JK which can be emergeable for x86 Gentoo Linux boxes.

Basically what I'm planning to do is to setup a Gentoo Linux on my Intel Pentium 4 box that will act as the X terminal server and just emerge the LTSP-4.1 packages for JavaStation JK which uses MicroSparc processor.  The new LTSP-4.1 binary ebuilds should be built for the said type of architecture.  Maybe the ebuild will be named as "ltsp-sparc-4.1" or whatever name depends on the discretion of the packager.

Lastly, hopefully the new ebuild will not install automatically DHCP, TFTP, XINETD, NFS, and XFree86/X.Org because what if there are already an existing any of the said services in other boxes and just want to make use of the existing servers.

I'm hoping for a favorable response on this request.

Thank you in advance.

[1] http://www.linux.org/
[2] http://sunsolve.sun.com/handbook_pub/Systems/JavaStation_JK/JavaStation_JK.html

Other Reference Sites:

- http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/ltsp.xml
- http://www.ltsp.org/ltsp-4.1.html
- http://wiki.ltsp.org/twiki/bin/view/Ltsp/LBE
- http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/JavaStation-HOWTO/index.html
Comment 1 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-03-07 19:21:11 UTC
Since I have a Javastation JK floating around in the basement, I'll take a crack at this.  Hopefully this will easily incorporate with the existing Gentoo LTSP work (I haven't looked yet).
Comment 2 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-03-20 07:45:53 UTC
This looks fairly do-able.  I'm going to begin work on this today.  I have no real ETA at the moment as my time for working on this fluctates greatly based on my real life job.
Comment 3 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-03-20 09:41:38 UTC
Are you looking for specific LTSP functionality out of this or do you just want an ability to to use your JavaStation on a Gentoo Linux x86 server?
Comment 4 bintut 2005-03-27 07:05:59 UTC
For now since I know and I like how LTSP works, I prefer to use my Sun JavaStation JK as a thin client to a Gentoo Linux x86 terminal server running LTSP-4.1.  If there are any other approach on how can I make use the Sun JavaStation JK that I have, I love to try them.  But for now, I'm interested to use them on a Gentoo LTSP-4.1 setup with all the functionalities it has right now.

I'm hoping for a favorable response from you, Sir.

Thanks in advance.

Comment 5 bintut 2005-04-04 03:30:54 UTC
Any updates, Sir?
Comment 6 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-04-04 05:43:54 UTC
No updates currently as I haven't had much time to work on this.  Hopefully will have some this week, but no guarantees.
Comment 7 bintut 2005-04-05 21:04:31 UTC
It's ok, Sir.  I'll just wait.  Thanks in advance.
Comment 8 bintut 2005-04-21 01:12:33 UTC
Sir,

LTSP 4.1.1 <http://www.ltsp.org/ltsp-4.1.1.html> is now available with lots of enhancements and bug fixes.  Maybe you should base your work on this new version.  I'm still waiting for your release of your binary packages built for Sun JavaStation JK on an x86 Gentoo Linux servers.

Thanks in advance.

--> bintut
Comment 9 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-04-21 05:17:11 UTC
Cool, thanks for the update.

So I've started out by using Splack's pre-built javastation framework, which is based on the 2.4.20 kernel.  I've tried newer kernels (namely, 2.4.25, 2.4.29 and 204.30) but none of them are able to mount the nfsroot correctly.  My next step is to attempt to and build my own 2.4.20 kernel to confirm that will work and if so, try and narrow down when this stopped working.
Comment 10 bintut 2005-04-22 03:00:29 UTC
Sir,

I haven't tried compiling a source mainly for x86 to Sparc architecture.  Is it difficult to build the sources that are not for Sparc (in this case, for x86) but you still build it?  I'm referring to the existing LBE (LTSP Build Environment) which all the sources needed for LTSP are all available.  The LTSP-4.1.1 has a default of kernel-2.4.26 with NFS swap which I'm interested with because I need to have a swap for all the Sun JavaStation JK.

Thanks in advance.
Comment 11 Ciaran McCreesh 2005-04-22 05:37:35 UTC
Swap over NFS is unusably slow. If you think you're going to have to use that, you need to rethink your requirements and implementation.
Comment 12 bintut 2005-04-23 09:56:04 UTC
I think I need NFS swap since Sun JavaStation JK has only 32MB RAM by default and I don't think it can cater X sessions and primarily using OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, Novell Evolution, GAIM, GIMP and Gnome as the desktop environment running at the same time for 10 to 20 thin clients on an Intel Pentium 4 processor with 1GB RAM LTSP-4.1.1 server.
Comment 13 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-04-23 20:02:16 UTC
Keep in mind that your Javastation will be doing all of the processing power here and your fileserver is just that (a fileserver).  Running some of those programs by themselves would severely tax the Javastation.  Additionally, where are you expecting those packages to come from (as they are not part of LTSP)?

If you could really give an in depth explanation of exactly what you want your Javastations to do, that would really help here.  LTSP and/or the Javastations may not be the answer for your desired result.
Comment 14 bintut 2005-04-25 08:21:34 UTC
- - - < s n i p > - - -
Keep in mind that your Javastation will be doing all of the processing power here and your fileserver is just that (a fileserver).  Running some of those programs by themselves would severely tax the Javastation.  Additionally, where are you expecting those packages to come from (as they are not part of LTSP)?
- - - < s n i p > - - -

Quoting from the LTSP.org website: "LTSP is an add-on package for Linux that allows you to connect lots of low-powered thin client terminals to a Linux server. Applications typically run on the server, and accept input and display their output on the thin client display."

With LTSP, all the processes are being done on the server instead on a per workstation unless otherwise you prefer to set your lts.conf that for all or a particular workstation will run "local applications" which in this case it will primarily hog the network rather that just slowing its processing performance.

- - - < s n i p > - - -
If you could really give an in depth explanation of exactly what you want your Javastations to do, that would really help here.  LTSP and/or the Javastations may not be the answer for your desired result.
- - - < s n i p > - - -

Before I answer your question, I just want you to know that I deployed 24 surplus workstations in our office in just one LTSP server.  The server is having an Intel Pentium 4 2.4Ghz, 1.5GB RAM, 100Mbps NIC, IDE HDD.  The surplus workstations that I converted to a diskless thin clients are mostly Intel Pentium 100Mhz (some are 90Mhz, 166Mhz and 200Mhz), 16MB RAM and 100Mbps NIC.  All our users are heavily using OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, Ximian Evolution, and tn5250j AS400 terminal emulator running Mandrake Linux 10.0 on KDE.

Now with my Sun JavaStation JK, it has 200Mhz, 32MB RAM and 100Mbps NIC.  If I was able to make our users/co-employees satisfied with my setup considering that they have a much lower hardware specs, more users than what I plan with my Sun JavaStation JK setup because I only have 10 units of it, and lastly the connections are not concurrent and the users are not heavily using office applications, I'm confident enough that I am on my right track.
Comment 15 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-04-25 09:28:10 UTC
Ah OK, some of this is just due to my lack of knowledge of LTSP in general.
Comment 16 bintut 2005-04-27 15:56:41 UTC
It's ok, Sir.  But I tell you, if you believe that when using Linux and Open Source Software can help you save a lot of money, with LTSP solutions, you can save more than what you expect simply because you can reutilize your legacy computers to work like a full blown workstation.
Comment 17 bintut 2005-05-05 19:21:07 UTC
Any updates, Sir?  :)
Comment 18 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-05-05 19:36:49 UTC
As I keep saying, when I have updates I'll post them.  However since this is for a platform that is currently in a quasi-supported state (sparc32), there will be other things that get priority over this.  Please be patient.
Comment 19 bintut 2005-05-07 08:10:00 UTC
Yes, Sir!  :)

Thanks in advance.
Comment 20 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-05-10 20:39:30 UTC
I've started building these packages locally.  So far I've had some build problems with gdb and xorg-x11 as they are provided by LTSP.  Goal now is to build as many of the packages that will ebuild and then later go back and fix the packages that won't.
Comment 21 bintut 2005-05-14 07:25:55 UTC
Hello Sir,

Please make sure that you're using the latest sources for LTSP-4.1.1 in order to make use of the new features and bugfixes of LTSP.  You can download the latest sources through the following:

$ cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@cvs.ltsp.org:/usr/local/cvsroot checkout lbe
$ cd lbe
$ ./build_all --fetch

Also, please don't forget to check the following sites below:

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/JavaStation-HOWTO/whatischapter.html#JavaStationModelsSection
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/JavaStation-HOWTO/kernelbuildchapter.html#KernelBuild-RequiredKernelConfigOptionsSection

If I'm not mistaken, we have the same model of JavaStations which is the "JK" and codenamed "Krups".  Please don't forget to enable the support of the JavaStation JK specific chipsets in the kernel.

Lastly, I hope when you compile the kernel-2.4, it should have a NFS swap patch so that I could make use of it for a better performance on the thin clients' side.

Thanks and good luck!  :)
Comment 22 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-05-14 08:20:36 UTC
Yup, I'm building everything based on 4.1.1

One problem that may be a big issue is the kernel-src module for the building of LTSP wants to use uclibc, which in the version they are using doesn't play so well on SPARC (tried to  use it in the past for other things).  I'll have to look further into what they are doing in that module to see if its really needed or not, but just an FYI.
Comment 23 bintut 2005-05-15 18:08:34 UTC
Well, if you can make use of the latest stable uClibc available in the Portage tree or can get rid of it (but I doubt though) that would be much better.

Good luck, Sir!
Comment 24 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-05-18 21:13:09 UTC
Fixed the issues with gdb and xorg-x11 so they build now.  Plan going forward is
to see what the kernel-src package's end goal is and see how necessary things
like uClibc are (since shared libs are not enabled for SPARC in all versions I'm
aware of).
Comment 25 bintut 2005-05-19 02:03:40 UTC
(In reply to comment #24)
> Fixed the issues with gdb and xorg-x11 so they build now.  Plan going forward is
> to see what the kernel-src package's end goal is and see how necessary things
> like uClibc are (since shared libs are not enabled for SPARC in all versions I'm
> aware of).

Cool!  :)

Actually, there was someone who was able to build the LBE of LTSP-4.0 for
UltraSparc machines as the thin clients last year in which you can find it at
http://math.univ-lille1.fr/ltsp-sparc/.  I don't know how the author was able to
compile the kernel as what you said, shared libs are not enabled on Sparc by
default.

I'm looking forward on the success of the LTSP-4.1.1 for JavaStations JK thin
clients (Sparc32)!

Good luck, Sir!
Comment 26 bintut 2005-06-23 08:16:25 UTC
Any updates, Sir?  :)
Comment 27 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-06-29 18:24:25 UTC
Comment #18 is your friend.
Comment 28 bintut 2005-07-05 07:17:35 UTC
(In reply to comment #27)
> Comment #18 is your friend.

Ok.  hehehe..  :)
Comment 29 bintut 2005-09-24 08:27:11 UTC
Dear Sir,

I was able to talk with Mr. Zouhir Hafidi <Zouhir.Hafidi@math.univ-lille1.fr>
through e-mail and he gave me a link where to download the kernel he compiled
for his Sun SparcStation 10 which is also a 32bit and to try if it works with my
Sun JavaStation JK (Krups).  You can download his binary kernel at
http://math.univ-lille1.fr/ltsp-sparc/test/kernel-2.4.26-ltsp-4.1.1-sparc32.img
 Just in case you don't have a binary kernel modules for LTSP-4.1.1, you can
also download it at
http://math.univ-lille1.fr/ltsp-sparc/test/kernel-modules-2.4.26-ltsp-4.1.1-sparc32.tgz

I hope you still have the binary ebuilds for LTSP-4.1.1 you created before and
integrate the above kernel and kernel modules to have a full ebuilds for
LTSP-4.1.1 in the portage tree.

Thank you.
Comment 30 bintut 2005-09-24 08:49:12 UTC
Sir,

I forgot to add the links I found for your additional references for running
LTSP-4.1.1 on Sun JavaStation JK (Krups).

- http://people.redhat.com/zaitcev/linux/
- http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/6125/linux/javastation.html

Below is for the JavaStation-1 (Mr. Coffee) for your reference although they
have a different hardware specs and OpenBoot version.

- http://www.kevinboone.com/linux_javastation.html

If it's possible not to use ARPD for this setup that would be better.  My Sun
JavaStation JK (Krups) is capable of booting through DHCP without ARP with the
help of the intermediate bootloader named PROLL of Mr. Pete Zaitcev.

Thank you.
Comment 31 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2005-09-24 21:30:57 UTC
Please don't adjust the priority of this bug.  As I keep saying, I am
exceedingly strapped for time and this is for an architecture (sparc32) that is
unsupported.  I'll get to it eventually, but I can't say when and it probably
won't fit your schedule.

Plus enhancements don't get a p1 priority (and please don't change the severity
from enhancement).
Comment 32 bintut 2005-09-25 03:49:01 UTC
(In reply to comment #31)
> Please don't adjust the priority of this bug.  As I keep saying, I am
> exceedingly strapped for time and this is for an architecture (sparc32) that
> is unsupported.  I'll get to it eventually, but I can't say when and it
> probably won't fit your schedule.
> 
> Plus enhancements don't get a p1 priority (and please don't change the severity
> from enhancement).

Oh, sorry again.  I thought that it's ok to change it as I was the one who
created this bug/request.

By the way, I just received Mr. Zouhir Hafidi's reply for my previous e-mail to
him and he gave me additional notes for the Sun JavaStation JK.  I will list
them all in bullet form below.

- Install and configure RARPD on the LTSP server
- Download PROLL at http://people.redhat.com/zaitcev/linux/proll.krups.ID18 and
put it at /tftpboot/lts/proll.krups.ID18
- Download
http://math.univ-lille1.fr/ltsp-sparc/test/tftpboot.img-2.4.26-1.ltsp.sparc32
and use it as the LTSP kernel
- Download the entire LTSP tree at
http://math.univ-lille1.fr/ltsp-sparc/test/sparc.tgz

That's it.  Thanks.
Comment 33 bintut 2006-03-27 06:12:25 UTC
Any updates on this request?
Comment 34 Jason Wever (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2006-05-29 21:31:45 UTC
Nope, no updates and to be honest, I'm not sure when there will be.  If someone else wants to pick this up, please feel free.  Otherwise, until sparc32 becomes a supported platform on Gentoo again, its unlikely that I'll have the time to really look into this.