User manual

Etherboot User Manual

Remember that the conﬁg ﬁles used by the X server should pertain to the client’s video adapter and

display hardware. If you used a LTSP (http://www.ltsp.org/) package, please review the

conﬁguration directions. If you used the copy ﬁles from server solution, then you need to customise

the X server conﬁguration. Another thing that may cause the server to abort is lack of a mouse

device.

2. X -query server runs but all I get is a gray stippled screen.

Either you don’t have an XDM server running on the server machine or it is not allowed to serve this

client. In the latter case check XDM’s Xaccess ﬁle, because for security reasons, the ability for

clients to connect is usually disabled.

3. When I am logged in using an X-terminal, I ﬁnd that the ﬂoppy drive, sound card and name of the

computer are those of the server!?

This is to be expected! This is exactly how an X-terminal works. You are indeed logged onto the

server and the client just provides display (screen) and input device (keyboard and mouse) services

to the application. This is one of the beauties of the X Windowing system model, it’s network

transparent.

4. So how do I run applications on the client? I have this (smartcard reader, printer, sound card, etc)

program that must execute locally.

The client can be conﬁgured to allow you to run programs locally. What you have to do is either start

the application from the init scripts run during bootup, as would be the case for the printer and sound

daemons mentioned later; or to start a shell interpreter on the client, either through an interactive

methods are rsh (insecure) and ssh (better).

5. X applications cannot ﬁnd (some) fonts.

Do you have an X font server (XFS) running on the server machine, is it allowed to serve this client,

and has the client been told to use the font server? The last point is usually conﬁgured in the

XF86Conﬁg ﬁle, or by a xset command to modify the font path after logging in.

Also note that RedHat (and possibly other distributions) has made XFS by default serve only the

local machine using a Unix socket. You need to modify the startup script to tell XFS to use a TCP/IP

socket.

6. How much CPU power and memory do I need on the client? On the server?

It depends on the conﬁguration. There are two major cases: where the client is an X-terminal, and

not much more; and where the client is conﬁgured to run applications locally.

An X server will ﬁt in 16MB of memory, and 32MB is quite adequate. Performance depends on the

CPU, video card and your expectations. An old Pentium 200 with a PCI video card does very well,

but if you are not fussy, a high-end 486 with a VLB video card can be satisfying too.