Host Environment

Connecting X Terminals to Linux Mini-HOWTO
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# 3. Host Environment

In an X environment, a host is a system that provides resources for an X Server. In a diskless workstation environment, the services provided by a host system will generally include session authentication using xauth and xhost, session management using xdm, file transfer services such as nfs and tftp which provide system fonts and a bootable image to be loaded into the X Terminal's RAM, and windowed client applications (e.g., Mozilla, Open Office).

## 3.1. Hardware

Our environment consists of 25 diskless workstations with 15 workstations using Mozilla, 6 worsktations utilizing a proprietary graphical application written in Java, and 4 workstations with an application running under a terminal emulator.The 6 java-based workstations use Gnome as their desktop environment. The remaining 19 workstations use FVWM2. To support that environment, we use 2 dual processor pentium 3's. One system has 1 gig of ram, the other has 500 megs. We have found that the stations running Gnome and Java use dramatically more memory and cpu than the stations running Mozilla.

## 3.2. Software

In order to use Linux as a host for a network of thin client workstations, you will want to get the latest release of the the XFree86 X Windows System, FVWM2, and nfs-utils. Assuming that you are using an RPM-based distribution, you will want the following packages: Xfree86-font-utils, Xfree86-libs, Xfree86-devel, Xfree86, Xfree86-truetype-font, Xfree86-xdm, Xfree86-base-fonts, nfs-utils, fvwm2, fvwm2-icons. To verify installed packages on an rpm-based distribution such as Redhat, you can use "rpm-qa | grep (packagename)". To install or update those packages simply download them from their maintainer or from your installation media with and "rpm -Uvh (packagename)". Alternately, you can use a graphical front end to rpm such as gnoRPM to maintain the required packages are installed on your system. For debian-based systems, or for Gentoo, please consult your system documentation on apt-get and portage, respectively.

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