[OPLINTECH] XP end of support plans?

[Ed Liddle]

On Tuesday 07 April 2009 14:55:57 shivelri at oplin.org wrote:
> I am curious as to how other libraries are handling the end of support
> of Windows XP?
>
> Are you upgrading to Vista? Holding out for Windows 7? Or are you
> looking into switching into the GPL line of OS's like Linux?

At the moment we are using  windows xp on the desktop. Since we are going to 
be migrating to a windows based ILS this year and our current print 
release/time management software for our public computers works on windows 
which also invokes our content filter to filter at different filtering levels, and 
we also started using an exchange e-mail server and a share point server for 
our intranet along with using active directory set up with a windows 2003 
server, we will most likely than not stay on the microsoft bandwagon a bit 
longer.  

How fast we will move to a newer version of windows from XP is yet to be 
determined. According to this article 
http://www.crn.com/software/216403001
and the timeline you provided, our friends at microsoft will be issuing 
security fixes for XP until 2014. According to this article microsoft is also 
planning to allow their customers to downgrade from windows 7 to XP like they 
do for Vista.  At some point we will most likely be moving to a newer version 
of windows by then. Being a microsoft shop is pretty cheap thanks to the 
software donations to tech soup. 

I would like to investigate using thin clients for the public internet/catalog 
stations and maybe some staff stations like circ stations. From what I have 
gathered using a thin client for windows you need something that can run a rdp 
client on the thin client to connect to terminal services on a windows server. 
This is often achieved by client running an embedded OS. If LTSP (linux 
terminal server project) is used, you do not need an embedded OS on the client 
as long as it can pxe boot from the nic card.  I also found out that you can 
set up LTSP to use a screen script that will start a rdp client to connect to 
windows terminal services from a diskless thin client.  You can also setup 
LTSP to run some applications on the client and some on the LTSP server in a 
linux desktop environment. This makes the image file the client pulls down from 
the server to run a little bigger but its supposed to take some load off of the 
server for commonly ran applications as well as provide the end user with a 
better experience using the application since its ran on the client locally 
and not on the LTSP server. You have to of course take into consideration the 
hardware that the client has and the hardware requirements of the application. 
I am not sure if this is an option using windows terminal services on a thin 
client. 
Thin clients can be purchased a lot cheaper than regular PCs. They also 
typically use less electric. I have been looking at intel atom processors. MSI 
makes a barebone mini computer with a dual core atom processor that can handle 
2 gigs of ram for about 149 bucks plus shipping. Last check a 2 gig stick of 
ram for it runs around 20 bucks plus shipping. If you add in a new monitor, 
keyboard and mouse a rough guesstimate would be adding about another 200 bucks 
on to it. So for about $400 you can have a small computer to use as a thin 
client. If you go the LTSP route the only moving part in the computer may be a 
fan.  For each new desktop computer that costs $800+ you could get 2 of these 
that would use less electricity and be cheaper to replace if it fails. Of 
course you would have to invest in a couple of servers for redundancy. Over a 
6 - 10 year period you could stagger the upgrade the servers to gain better 
performance and then only have to replace one server at a time or add 
additional servers if needed. Also for the person responsible for keeping 
machines updated would just have the servers to worry about updating.  
I have been playing with LTSP at home on Ubuntu and using an old P4 computer 
for the diskless client. I have not yet played around with windows terminal 
server and thin clients. I am unsure of the process to install and keep  
applications updated that run in Microsoft Windows Terminal Services compared 
to the Linux Terminal Server Project. 

So after that is said I wouldn't rule out the remote possibility of a mixed 
environment if we at some point decide to implement thin clients, either LTSP 
running a linux environment or LTSP serving up a rdp client to connect to 
windows terminal services or a client running embedded linux that serves up a 
rdp client. 

-Ed Liddle