Hi There,

I'm fairly new to the **nix world, being reasonably happy with linux on my file server and also with both my lappy and desktop being dual boot xp/linux running either Fedora or centos.

One of my clients whose windows machines I maintain has asked me if I would be able to set up freebsd 'dumb terminals' which they use to connect to their sco unix server that runs their merchant catalogue system. Now this apparently wouldn't entail any real level of complication other than being able to install a machine, and maybe change IP address etc.

Now from what I understand after having a quick look at these 'Dumb Terminals' they boot a basic kernel from local hard drive then connect to the server over the network where they then continue to boot then offer username and password login. I'd guess this works in a similar way to an ssh client logging into a linux box via console, which i often do from my windows box using puttyssh.

**nix work is certainly something I wouldn't normally consider doing on a proffessional basis but in this instance the client is aware of the situation and would still like me to deal with it, as the server is covered by a service contract, but the person who would nomally deal with the Freebsd terminals is very difficult to get hold of when needed.

So the question is how easy is this sort of setup? Is it something I should look into? Is there anyway of reverse engineering an existing terminal so I can then take the appropriate config files over to a new machine if required.

I know this is a very open ended question, but I need to know what exactly is likely to be involved?

Apologies for the small novel sized question,

Thanks in advance,


dysonco

Really not my area of expertise but since the terminals are dumb I would suspect that they all have very little local data and probably it's identical across all of them. If the hardware is not to different (need recompiled kernel and such) you should probably be able yo just clone the disks.