Possible group buy of Ardence Desktop (Diskless PC)

[PGPfan]

Hi Footmasta,

You don't need CF, nor anything other than this software. Think of it like this: You have your computer all setup and loaded with the software you like. Then you pull the hard drive completely out of it, and move that hard drive to a machine on your local network that is your server. When you fire up your PC, it boots from the network and loads the OS you have already loaded. The only difference is that the hard drive is in a different machine and the OS is actually running over the network.

You'd think it would be slower, and take up a lot of network bandwidth but that doesn't seem to be the case based on the people who have tried it.

Does this clarify anything for you?

-PGPfan

[footmasta]

Originally Posted by PGPfan

Hi Footmasta,

You don't need CF, nor anything other than this software. Think of it like this: You have your computer all setup and loaded with the software you like. Then you pull the hard drive completely out of it, and move that hard drive to a machine on your local network that is your server. When you fire up your PC, it boots from the network and loads the OS you have already loaded. The only difference is that the hard drive is in a different machine and the OS is actually running over the network.

You'd think it would be slower, and take up a lot of network bandwidth but that doesn't seem to be the case based on the people who have tried it.

Does this clarify anything for you?

-PGPfan

WOW, yes that clears it up. Where can I findout more info on this besides the first link posted?

[src666]

I haven't worked with BootROMs for years, but this sounds just like what we used to be able to do for free. Most network adapters have the ability to bootstrap a computer from a network source. Maybe things have changed and this capability is no longer easy to take advantage of, but there's no way I would pay $250, or even $50, for a remote boot solution. There _HAS_ to be a cheaper solution.

[PGPfan]

There isn't a cheaper solution that can do this. BootRoms do allow for essentially PXE boot (Pre-eXecution-Environment), which basically makes the network seen as a bootable device. However, that doesnt' solve the HUGE task of making XP operate transparently over a network using that same network as its boot drive. There are some limited Linux tools that try to aproach this, but are no where near ready for prime time.

Again, it may not be ideal for YOU but for others it is a great solution to a problem a lot of us face.

-PGPfan

[PGPfan]

Keep in mind also that this isn't a 'remote boot', it IS a remote OS. There is a huge difference between the operation of each of them.

-PGPfan

[evilpenguin]

Hmm... this sounds very intriguing, a few questions.

1- How do you maintain the images on the server? Like if Sage 4.1.20 beta gets released and I want to drop it on the client, how do I do it? Do I just load it up on my Client and the change propagates over to the Server or do I need to launch the image in some type of VMware envirment and install it there.

2- Has anyone tried this using HD playback or games like Stepmania or emulators? I'm curious if this thing has the power/speed to handle stuff like this.

3-Do the image files just sit on a regular windows PC (i.e. my sage server) with special Ardence admin software on it or do you need a specific Ardence server.

[AndersNolberger]

evilpenguin:
You install the Ardence server software on a computer on the network. It can be an ordinary Windows XP machine. I am going to install it on the same machine that I have SageTV on. But on different disks to not disturb Sage's playback of files.

The client that is going to be diskless works as if it had a disk but instead the files reside on the server in a file (much the same as in VMware). So to install a software you just install it on the client. If you have an installation where many client is using the same image, you connects with one client in a special way to get the rights to update the image. You can actually mount the virtual disk on the server but that is not anything you would normally do but can be useful if something goes wrong.

I have not tried it with HD but the client will only have its software on the virtual disk. The HD stream will be handled the same way as always with streaming from the SageTV server to the client and should not be affected at all.

Anders