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From: ruffwork@orstcs.cs.ORST.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: diskless Suns as window servers?
Message-ID: <245700001@orstcs>
Date: Wed, 12-Aug-87 10:18:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: orstcs.245700001
Posted: Wed Aug 12 10:18:00 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Aug-87 09:52:29 EDT
Lines: 39
Nf-ID: #N:orstcs:245700001:000:1664
Nf-From: orstcs.cs.ORST.EDU!ruffwork    Aug 12 07:18:00 1987



I an discussion about the problems with diskless workstations 
Hugh LaMaster (lamaster@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov) responded :

>Another approach to the diskless workstation (which I currently attribute to
>an employee of DEC) is to view it as a window server:  You have enough
>horsepower in your diskless machine to run windowing, ...

I have a question - does anyone have experience in this type of setup?
We are about to invest in a multi-Sun setup and were wondering if
it would be a better utilization of resources to go the traditional
way (a large Sun 3 server and a bunch of diskless Suns with lots of
real memory then swap over the net) or with a windowing setup (with
a REALLY maxed-out Sun 3 or 4 and a bunch of diskless Suns with enough
real memory to run X windows and/or News).  Of course the intended
use is important: we plan this for use by our AI research group,
so will have several people at a time running Lisp 
(Kyoto or Lucid most likely).  We also plan on putting them on their
own separate ether cable (so it does not swamp our main dept. net).

	Has anybody done the windowing setup yet?  
	Any feelings on how it would work?

It seems like it would solve the typical "cp" and "make" problems
that I always hear about, but does it introduce new problems?

Please mail to me directly and I'll summarize...

Thanks for the info (in advance),
--Ritchey Ruff

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