LTSP keep or replace

Computer Hardware & Server Infrastructure Builds
1

I’ve been using LTSP for 12 years and my current setup is on an old Ubuntu LTS that isn’t supported so it’s time to get to the new 20.04 release. I’ve enjoyed having my 13 year old sempron computers power 4 stations using an HP DL160 G6 as the host. I see that LTSP has been completely overhauled and is no longer an official Ubuntu package as it requires third party repositories. For years I’ve wanted an ideal setup where the office desktop is also my laptop desktop similar to what Tom does with his video rendering. Does anybody have any recommendations?

Ideal scenario:

  • 4 office computers boot from network (or at the most an old flash drive) to a login screen that immediately gets to their desktop
  • An old laptop booting off a flash drive that auto connects to a vpn as soon as it obtains internet and then reaches the same login screen to the desktop at the office
  • The login screen that is booted from the drive or network would have an option for multiple saved sessions (perhaps for accessing a windows machine in addition to Ubuntu)

If LTSP is still the best way to go for internal office computers then I’ll stick with it but I’m guessing that there are now better scenarios. As for my ideal wishes for my external laptop I know it can be accomplished booting a full Ubuntu live and going to an app but it would be nice if it was a really fast, minimal boot that has only essential apps and services to get to the net, vpn, and sessions.

I appreciate any advice or stories of how you do things. Thanks!

2

I know the project has been around for a long time, but I have never really used the LTSP projects. I do have a video on X2GO which is nice for remotely connecting to Linux Desktops.

4

I watched your video on X2GO the day you released it as I was excited to find a solution for the use case I’d like to complete. I just spent the weekend looking into X2GO and came to a couple conclusions. Their documentation is very out of date and the PXE feature doesn’t work (to which they admit it is an old solution but their new solution isn’t documented or complete.) Also it appears that their RDP to windows isn’t near as feature rich as others. Is that the case or am I just not finding the material? Does anybody have experience using X2GO for RDP? I feel like I might end up using it for access outside of the office but without the PXE and windows experience it may not suffice.

Thanks for your videos and quick response. I waited to reply until I did some research into the project.