The World Summit on Sustainable Development`s Waterdome installation has become a showcase for the possibilities of Linux technology. Constrained by a small budget, the media centre is running entirely on Linux in a thin-client environment.
The 100-odd desktop PCs connect to six Linux servers, running SuSE 8, which in turn authenticates off a single main server.
Journalists working from the centre, which was opened last night by former president Nelson Mandela and the Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, will have their own user names and passwords, giving them their own personalised desktop, no matter which PC they use.
While power problems and configuration issues last night dogged Newwave Communications, a local Internet service provider that was awarded the contract by the Dutch government, technical director James Melliar says the system is fairly easy to manage. With only two support staff, he says the installation highlights Linux`s manageability.
The thin-client machines have no hard drives of their own and use VIA`s low-power 133MHz GigaPro processors. Melliar says the low power nature of the solution is in line with the philosophy of the summit in general, and the Waterdome`s message of water conservation in particular.
Running 16 PCs per one AMD Athlon XP 1800+ server was a technical accomplishment in itself, says Melliar. "No one`s done something this big with Linux on the desktop before," he says. "Usually you don`t go past eight machines per server."
With Linux growing in popularity daily among government and corporate users, this is an opportune time for Newwave`s initiative. "I`m trying to bring Linux out of the back-office," says Melliar.
According to the International Data Corporation, Linux on the desktop is growing significantly faster than server installations, with server growth almost flat last year compared with a combined annual growth rate of 50% on the desktop. Linux as a whole is experiencing a 28% growth rate, primarily due to the high adoption in Asia/Pacific countries. Thin-client computing is also growing steadily, with 1.4 million thin-clients expected to ship this year compared with 1.09 million last year.
The Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, is using a standard Windows terminal at the Waterdome, which was also set up by the Linux gurus from Newwave. In true Linux style, the techies were not dressed for the occasion, and had to wait until the Prince left his chambers to install the box, as he cannot be seen with people not wearing suites - penguin suites don`t count, it seems.
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