Windows PCs vs. X Terminals: A Cost Comparison

X-terminals are nice if you never have to use portables. If people in a company need portables because they visit customers, work from home/remote office ..., X-terminal based solutions are never competitive in price, flexibility and ease of use.

Having a mixed environment of PC and X-terminals is a nightmare from the operational point of view; the IT department has to be trained and has to solve issues for both systems, which is a burden. We've tried it out and switched backed to PC-only systems

Excellent case study...how can we contact Salvador to get more info for a similar project?

Rahul Chopra

The cost for new Client Hardware should be in the 15 years comparison. But even with this added cost the X-terminal approach will be still cheaper then the MS-Windows deal.
Some years ago the X-terminal market was dead. Now people are using PC hardware as X-terminal base. This idea is a big success. The pure X-terminals of old were to expensive because of low volume. The PC hardware is high volume and the X-terminal solution is again competive.
And you can have a silent workstation again - if you use a USB-stick in your PC X-terminal as harddrive replacement. This should be nice for a library.

This was exactly what my former university (about 2 years ago) did. They had the "programming" lab setup using networked clients, where your experience was whatever the server was. The first year there, they were still running an old server in the backend, and it was frightfully slow whenever the whole class was logged in.

The following year, they had upgraded that single machine to a shiny new dual pentium. Voila, instant performance, no change of functionality or clients. From our point of view, the hardware hadn't changed, but suddenly the screens were fast, and there were more applications.

Now, the 'word processing labs' on the other hand were also upgraded to nice shiny new pentium machines. Didn't take long for us to (a: install every p2p client known to man, b: circumvent administrative access to install said software, c: ensure that these machines were left in a virtually unusable condition every other day). Believe it or not, some students get a kick out of doing that. Makes the art students life hell ;-), because I can just to type up my report on OpenOffice in the programming lab

Part of my job is to provide helpdesk support for a School District that runs both Windows and Linux Terminal Servers. There are approxamatly 80 schools. We have more linux Thin Client stations that we have windows stations. It is not that Linux is not getting used, on the contrary it is being used just as much or even more than the Windows workstations.

However I spend more helpdesk time providing support for the Windows workstations than support for the Linux Thin Clients.

The Linux Thin clients are allot easier keeping up-to-date. I update the software on the Terminal Server and all thin clients instantly get the new software. I just run the Debian "aptitude" program and I can easily install/upgrade/remove software from a lab of 30-50 computers.

We purchase re-cycled $40 "Thin Clients". However our thin clients are getting fatter (eg P450) so we developed some sofware to do load balancing between the server and the client based on the client's CPU speed and RAM.

We do spend a bit more money on our Servers and Switches.

Our thin clients have a huge selection of free educational and business software. Just check out: http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages

I have heard many arguments regarding open-source vs closed-source ... But so far students seem to prefer having a wealth of free Linux software over a limited locked down windows station with few and expensive software. Teachers like Linux solutions because there are less chrashes, no viruses, no spyware, no kids snooping where they shouldn't be etc.

Linux to me represents:
- Less Licences
- Less Helpdesk Calls
- Easier To Keep Up-To-Date
- Easier To Remotely Administer
- More Controll
- More Flexibility
- More Software
- More Satisfied End Users

I manage Windows and Linux and Linux is easier to Manage.
Nothing to argue about in our School District.

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Windows XP SP2 - Just trying to catch up to what Linux has had for a long long time... (Firewall, Automatic Updates, and Virus Protection).

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"Dear Microsoft, please include Automatic Updates to ALL my software on my computer through windowsupdate.com. Don't just upgrade the operating system. Please see Debian Linux for an example. Thanks"

Good article.

Salvador, how is your mom?
Say hi to her and the 2 dogs.

From my experience in with PC's over the past twenty or so years, it seems that projections based on using primary hardware beyond three to five years have proved to be futile.
Sure, you can have something that runs. But what service is it providing to its user base. Or, on the other hand, what services is it not providing to its user base. If the intent is a cheap, reliable, and supportable system that can access a centralized base if information, telnet access from text only terminals is the way to go. If, instead, the goal is to provide a full featured modern internet experience, new hardware and fresh, easily replaceable, hard drives will be in order.
For most organizations, the proposed solution would not fit the bill. Additionally, as the plan is now described, could not have been devised at the beginning of its intended project due to many of its critical pieces not existing. This practice of redesigning and managing obsolesce can be administratively intensive and frequently leads to unsupportable pet networks.
As a fifteen year cost analysis, I think that this information is misleading at best. It may accurately represent the projected costs of maintaining this installation for the next five years, but it does not reflect a transferable model that can meet a typical organization