Cindy Murdock

About 6 years ago, I was facing the prospect of replacing our largest library’s public Internet computers. They were several years old, and getting flakier by the day. At the time I was only maintaining our nine libraries’ computers part time while also doing the job of administrative assistant, so I wanted to find a way to make maintaining these computers less time-consuming. I was just beginning to learn to use Linux, and somewhere along the line I heard about the LTSP, the Linux Terminal Server Project. The LTSP is a software package that allows you to connect a number of thin client terminals to a central Linux server.

The thin clients (which can either be low-power, small-form-factor units or standard computers stripped of a hard drive) boot from and run all their software on the server. They don’t need to be very powerful, so you can reuse older hardware, too; we’ve found that a 300 mHz processor with 64 MB of memory is more than enough, since the software will run at the server’s speed. Rather than having a full-blown desktop computer at each public Internet station, we could have a less expensive thin client. We decided to reuse old computer cases and installed new motherboards and processors in them, and we purchased bootable network cards from DisklessWorkstations.com. Since the thin clients don’t need hard drives, cdrom drives, or even floppy drives, not only is it less expensive per seat than buying desktop computers, but there is less hardware to keep in working order. However, you can allow patrons to have access to local drives and even USB thumb drives if needed.

Also, since all the software is on the server, when it comes time to update you only have to do it once, rather than once for each desktop. Since Linux is inherently security-minded, it is quite easy to secure the user accounts so that patrons cannot make any changes to the desktop or the software, and if they do manage it, it is easy to automate the process of refreshing the user account, so that any changes are erased. No extra software needs to be purchased to secure them, and since Linux can be had for free, you can entirely (and legally) avoid paying for any software. It is also easy to simplify and standardize the desktop environment, so that users can only access the programs you want them to, and so that you can supply your users with a consistent computing environment; this makes supporting the public easier for the library staff, too.

I rarely have to do anything to maintain our thin clients. When it’s time to upgrade to something faster and newer, you can simply replace the server. We’ve been using the same thin clients for 6 years, but I have replaced our server twice. I plan on doing so every two or three years. In case of a hardware failure you can keep your last server as a backup. We started out with four thin clients for Internet access and two limited to accessing certain reference and research related web-based resources (accomplished via the squid proxy); we have expanded to add three more Internet stations, and two word processing stations. Once we migrate to Koha, we will be converting all of our patron catalogs and circulation computers to thin clients; this will save us from having to buy 14 new computers this year, which would definitely deplete my budget. I’d also like to install thin clients in some of our other libraries in the near future.

So, if you’re seeking a means of simplifying the task of computer maintenance or a way to potentially save money, consider using the LTSP. Implementing it has become considerably easier since I first installed it, and there is a great deal of documentation available at http://www.ltsp.org. There is also an active mailing list available for help; I’ve often found that I can get far better software support for Open Source software than for commercial software; if you ask for help on a mailing list, you very often get a response from others using the software who have had the same problem and already discovered out how to fix it, or from the developers themselves. I know I’ve been happy with it.

About the Author

Cindy Murdock is Network Administrator for the Meadville Public Library and the Crawford County Federated Library System, located in Crawford County, Pennsylvania. She has a Bachelor's in Art History from Edinboro University of PA and a Master's in Library Science from Clarion University of PA. She specializes in implementing Open Source solutions in her libraries, such as the Linux Terminal Server Project, filtering with SquidGuard and DansGuardian, and routing and firewalling with OpenBSD, among others. The CCFLS libraries are in the process of migrating to Koha this year. In her spare time she enjoys playing the djembe with her local drum circle and is presently obsessed with knitting.