Just set up my first standalone hp thin client. It has the advantage over the ncomputing devices that it doesnt require any special software on the central server like the ncomputing. It should lend stability, because it was getting harder and harder to keep vspace running either under linux or windows xp. Updates in xp tripped it up, and random failures occured all too often in the linux version.
The hp's are available for some pretty reasonable prices used. This one is linux based, and I am waiting for a win7 embedded one to try as well. The rdp client worked flawlessly with none of the keyboard mapping quirks of the ncomputing units. Win7 would give me the option of running rdp on a linux or windows server, as well as executing avimark locally, loaded off a server if necessary.
Have to get some miles on them to be sure.. But looks promising.
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Oops spoke too soon on the ncomputing
They jumped up and bit me again today. They just couldnt get along with the cups printing system again, so... Shut em down, and the rest of the rdp sessions soldiered on perfectly all day. Sigh
Friday, May 10, 2013
My apologies to ncomputing
The ncomputing terminals kept logging out or hanging on their own neccesitating restarts to resolve it all.
The problem turned out to be network issues unrelated to ncomputing. Mediacom's dns server addresses once again exposed my network to a non local .local domain. The principal trouble that causes with ubuntu in a multi user setting is the ongoing resolution of the printers under CUPS. I had one computer on the network that had been set long ago to a fixed ip address and fixed dns server addresses that were different from the rest of the network. Go looking for printers attached to that one, and it was periodic choke time.
I set everything to a public dns server address, and the printing issues went away completely, along with the network instability that was kicking off the ncomputing devices. End result has been tremendous stability.
Looks like I am in this for the long haul now.
The problem turned out to be network issues unrelated to ncomputing. Mediacom's dns server addresses once again exposed my network to a non local .local domain. The principal trouble that causes with ubuntu in a multi user setting is the ongoing resolution of the printers under CUPS. I had one computer on the network that had been set long ago to a fixed ip address and fixed dns server addresses that were different from the rest of the network. Go looking for printers attached to that one, and it was periodic choke time.
I set everything to a public dns server address, and the printing issues went away completely, along with the network instability that was kicking off the ncomputing devices. End result has been tremendous stability.
Looks like I am in this for the long haul now.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Wow has it been that long?
Still using Avimark in linux. Almost the entire clinic is running on it, with just a couple of Windows machines.
The last few annoying things seem to have been tracked down today. It involved linux file permissions. Have to read about access control lists, chmod g+s command and the set facl command.
Seems that the temporary dump folder we used to take scans in gave permission for everyone to read, but was not granting write permissions on new files as they were created. Similar behavior on the attachments folder and sub folders.
I will also apply inheritance to the regular avimark folder, because it seems that occasionally an index gets grabbed and re written by a user, and the editing of purchase orders gets locked until permissions are re set.
For the most part though.. day to day, it is all working.
Unfriendly shutdown of some computers during rainstorm the other day caused some ip conflicts between the haves and have nots after some computers powered down in an un coordinated fasion. I really wanted to blame linux, but it was just run of the mill networking conflict stuff.
A nice structured shut down and re start fixed everything.
I plan to test the latest Avimark release soon, but if it doesn't have any compelling new features, I will probably stick with 2012 5.11.0 for a while because it just works
Biggest problems/ glitches seem related to the Ncomputing terminals and vspace. Have had it get confused a couple of times in the last month, and had to do a server re start to clear. The other non vspace terminals soldiered on just fine.
The last few annoying things seem to have been tracked down today. It involved linux file permissions. Have to read about access control lists, chmod g+s command and the set facl command.
Seems that the temporary dump folder we used to take scans in gave permission for everyone to read, but was not granting write permissions on new files as they were created. Similar behavior on the attachments folder and sub folders.
I will also apply inheritance to the regular avimark folder, because it seems that occasionally an index gets grabbed and re written by a user, and the editing of purchase orders gets locked until permissions are re set.
For the most part though.. day to day, it is all working.
Unfriendly shutdown of some computers during rainstorm the other day caused some ip conflicts between the haves and have nots after some computers powered down in an un coordinated fasion. I really wanted to blame linux, but it was just run of the mill networking conflict stuff.
A nice structured shut down and re start fixed everything.
I plan to test the latest Avimark release soon, but if it doesn't have any compelling new features, I will probably stick with 2012 5.11.0 for a while because it just works
Biggest problems/ glitches seem related to the Ncomputing terminals and vspace. Have had it get confused a couple of times in the last month, and had to do a server re start to clear. The other non vspace terminals soldiered on just fine.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
I must be one lucky schmuck
A few years back, I invested in some N computing thin clients, that divvie up a windows xp computer into multiple user desktops, for a couple hundred a pop, and running silently with only 5 watt power consumption.
Fast forward a few years, and microsoft got smart, and updated their user agreement in vista and win7, so that even though the technology works still, you need to buy licenses for each session to stay legal. They also work with windows server, but you have to choose between regular terminal services, or ncomputing devices, as both wont work together on one server.
LINUX TO THE RESCUE. It seems that the n computing devices are happy as a clam to work with ubuntu 12.04 64 bit. I was able to log on from rdp and ncomputing at the same time with no ill effect, so I wont have to replace my terminals. They deliver a nice linux desktop environment to each user, totally isolated from the other.
So I will wait until after some scheduled travel, and then bring the 64 bit machine online at work. And go linux on the thin clients.
Fast forward a few years, and microsoft got smart, and updated their user agreement in vista and win7, so that even though the technology works still, you need to buy licenses for each session to stay legal. They also work with windows server, but you have to choose between regular terminal services, or ncomputing devices, as both wont work together on one server.
LINUX TO THE RESCUE. It seems that the n computing devices are happy as a clam to work with ubuntu 12.04 64 bit. I was able to log on from rdp and ncomputing at the same time with no ill effect, so I wont have to replace my terminals. They deliver a nice linux desktop environment to each user, totally isolated from the other.
So I will wait until after some scheduled travel, and then bring the 64 bit machine online at work. And go linux on the thin clients.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
3 weeks and no explosions
Biggest accomplishment this week, was figuring out the intracacies of the dymo drivers for linux. We have at least 3 flavors of dymo printer, but once you get the counterintuitive settings right, its all good.
Also had one document that wouldnt merge right, but it turns out it was something hidden in the document itself as a fresh copy with the same merge words works.
I created some more user accounts, and have had as many as 8 rdp sessions live with no slowdown apparent. This is with the server also hosting a virtual machine that runs my pacs system. Got a couple of error messages on one terminal that had admin rights when ubuntu popped up that it wanted to update but overall a very stable environment, stable log ins and log outs. I even did a few experimental setting things on the main machine that kludged it desktop session, but everything else just kept running, even when I logged in and out of the main administrative account.
I will probably roll out a couple more sessions next week, and then hopefully convert the thin clients over.
3 of the machines are in the lab, pharmacy area, one of the busiest places in the clinic. No crash, no hiccup.
I also found out that ncomputing now has server software that should work natively in linux, just updated to Ubuntu 12.04, which is what i am running,so I will probably play with that and see if it peacefully coexists with the other rdp sessions. I know that on a windows server, you have to choose either or.. Rdp, or ncomputing vspace... It looks like vspace for linux uses lightdm display manager, so I am hopeful.
I am also recreating and documenting my footsteps on a fresh install, to make sure I can replicate this experiment, in an organized straight forward fashion, because there were many dead ends along the way.
If I can figure out a way to have a bogus research database, without real clients, I might be inclined to put a demo machine online for the curious to log in to.
Also had one document that wouldnt merge right, but it turns out it was something hidden in the document itself as a fresh copy with the same merge words works.
I created some more user accounts, and have had as many as 8 rdp sessions live with no slowdown apparent. This is with the server also hosting a virtual machine that runs my pacs system. Got a couple of error messages on one terminal that had admin rights when ubuntu popped up that it wanted to update but overall a very stable environment, stable log ins and log outs. I even did a few experimental setting things on the main machine that kludged it desktop session, but everything else just kept running, even when I logged in and out of the main administrative account.
I will probably roll out a couple more sessions next week, and then hopefully convert the thin clients over.
3 of the machines are in the lab, pharmacy area, one of the busiest places in the clinic. No crash, no hiccup.
I also found out that ncomputing now has server software that should work natively in linux, just updated to Ubuntu 12.04, which is what i am running,so I will probably play with that and see if it peacefully coexists with the other rdp sessions. I know that on a windows server, you have to choose either or.. Rdp, or ncomputing vspace... It looks like vspace for linux uses lightdm display manager, so I am hopeful.
I am also recreating and documenting my footsteps on a fresh install, to make sure I can replicate this experiment, in an organized straight forward fashion, because there were many dead ends along the way.
If I can figure out a way to have a bogus research database, without real clients, I might be inclined to put a demo machine online for the curious to log in to.
Friday, February 1, 2013
So why does it work now?
I have a sneaking suspicion, that I just gave up too soon, when a few years back, Avimark seemed to "kind of work" in Linux. Fully resolving the file addresses across the network is the crux of it. Initially, I tried running the linux session off of an xp share... And of course it failed when some files could not be accessed. Could have been address resolution, file permissions, or both.
A few years of running windows machnes off a linux server gave me some insight into file permissions, file ownership, and file locking.
Some digging into why one method of logging on to a windows share seemed to work, and others didn't was the biggest clue.
It seems that networked machines use any of about 4 methods to resolve a netbios address for the location of a file that is needed. The linux workstation may run through the 4 methods trying to find the right file in the right place on the network. You may get lucky if your linux machine has the right choices intalled in the right order, or if not, it may be "close but no cigar".
One clue as to whether your share is resolving the avimark directory correctly is if you display the directory in icon mode rather than list. If avimark.exe is displaying with the real avimark icon, you are golden. If not, and it displays with a generic icon, you are only getting partial name resolution for your file, and some of the calls (whiteboard in particular) will hang...looking to access a file that never answers. I'm sure every windows user has seen this as well when starting a machine, and the avimark icon is generic. The icon file isnt being found..you are having some sort of communication or disk problem.
Why in the world are there 4 methods? History... Way back in the dinosaur ages we found files on a network from a hard coded list. Later machines on a peer to peer negotiated who kept the list and how it was updated. Shares periodically broadcasted themselves across the network to all listening. Later, You could set one machine to be master, and update, and search only from it...Then we move into different protocols for Server class machines with domains.
You can set your linux machine to use any of these, and even the order in which they are tried when a file is called for,. But alas.. Not all linux distros have for example WINS installed by default...so the whiteboard, across certain network shares will fail.
THE GOOD NEWS. It makes much less difference running natively on one machine, and running multiple terminal sessions on that machine. This gets rid of the futzy network resolution, and gains you the speed of not doing all the database heavy lifting over the network..only the screen and keyboard events cross back and forth.
A few years of running windows machnes off a linux server gave me some insight into file permissions, file ownership, and file locking.
Some digging into why one method of logging on to a windows share seemed to work, and others didn't was the biggest clue.
It seems that networked machines use any of about 4 methods to resolve a netbios address for the location of a file that is needed. The linux workstation may run through the 4 methods trying to find the right file in the right place on the network. You may get lucky if your linux machine has the right choices intalled in the right order, or if not, it may be "close but no cigar".
One clue as to whether your share is resolving the avimark directory correctly is if you display the directory in icon mode rather than list. If avimark.exe is displaying with the real avimark icon, you are golden. If not, and it displays with a generic icon, you are only getting partial name resolution for your file, and some of the calls (whiteboard in particular) will hang...looking to access a file that never answers. I'm sure every windows user has seen this as well when starting a machine, and the avimark icon is generic. The icon file isnt being found..you are having some sort of communication or disk problem.
Why in the world are there 4 methods? History... Way back in the dinosaur ages we found files on a network from a hard coded list. Later machines on a peer to peer negotiated who kept the list and how it was updated. Shares periodically broadcasted themselves across the network to all listening. Later, You could set one machine to be master, and update, and search only from it...Then we move into different protocols for Server class machines with domains.
You can set your linux machine to use any of these, and even the order in which they are tried when a file is called for,. But alas.. Not all linux distros have for example WINS installed by default...so the whiteboard, across certain network shares will fail.
THE GOOD NEWS. It makes much less difference running natively on one machine, and running multiple terminal sessions on that machine. This gets rid of the futzy network resolution, and gains you the speed of not doing all the database heavy lifting over the network..only the screen and keyboard events cross back and forth.
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