Plume offers a comprehensive package for building and managing a network of diskless computers as X terminals. It provides a complete solution to create and administer such a network.
This software is perfect for setting up a server with thin clients, each based on Debian. It is known for being incredibly light on the clients, requiring as little as 4MB RAM on a typical client, and is designed to work on commodity hardware. A thin client is a computer in client-server architecture networks that relies primarily on a central server for processing activities.
Plume has been working effectively in various settings since the early 2000s, without requiring much maintenance or specialist input when changes need to be made. It has successfully undergone a migration from Potato to Woody on at least one server and from Woody to Sarge on at least one other server.
This software is available as Debian packages, making it incredibly easy to install on any Debian machine. It was created mainly for use in schools and can function well on older PCs, with as little as a 486 with 8MB RAM. It has been designed to be a clean replacement for LTSP.
The project is currently hosted on SourceForge.net, and the latest source release can be downloaded from there. Debian Woody packages are available, and it also functions effectively on Sid. For binary releases (Debian packages), users can contact the team on the mailing list without even subscribing. There is even a French-speaking mailing-list dedicated to current users of Plume installations.
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