Feel free to add questions you have...
Contents
- What is Vamos?
- What problems does Vamos solve?
- What's so bad with installations?
- Why not just using a big flash drive?
- Isn't it thin client solution?
- So Vamos is just a project or something I can actually use?
- How Vamos can work diskless?
- Why is it better than thin client?
- Why is it better than fat client?
- What the big difference between Vamos client to LiveCD/DVD/USB?
- What's next?
- Why you named it Vamos?
- Why dont you love me? :(
What is Vamos?
Vamos is a project that developes open source software for network computing. Vamos approach is that computers should process, but not persist the data. Using this approach the computers are stateless and could even be diskless.
What problems does Vamos solve?
- Operating system and applications must be pre-installed into the computer hard disk in order to run.
- The user personalized computing environment is available only on one physical computer.
- Hard-disks make noise, heat and tend to break.
- Most personal computers are expensive and big.
- LiveCD/DVD are nice for demos, but not designed to work as day by day, persistent desktop environment.
- Thin Client solutions are expensive and not capable to provide the full functionality of local execution client (fat or hybrid client)
What's so bad with installations?
Why not just using a big flash drive?
Isn't it thin client solution?
So Vamos is just a project or something I can actually use?
You don't use Vamos directly, but its products.
How Vamos can work diskless?
When the computer boots, the BIOS looks for a boot device that contains the operating system. Common boot devices are Hard Disk, CD-ROM, DVD and USB. From 2001, most computers are shipped with motherboards that are compatible with PXE specifications. With PXE, the computer has the brains to connect to the network, fetch the network boot image and load the operating system (Linux, but also other like BSD). This is quite a complex process that also involves DHCP, TFTP servers and PXELINUX library.
Since no hard disk is present, Linux must use a remote storage. The linux kernel is able to use (mount) a network file system such as NFS, or CIFS. When an application is needed, it is loaded from the network into the RAM. The application layer works transparently with every filesystem, so when Firefox saves a cookie, it doesn't know/care the cookie is actually saved on the server.
Why is it better than thin client?
Vamos adopts the hybrid client approach. Hybrid client advantages over thin clients can be found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_client#Comparison_with_thin_client
Why is it better than fat client?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_client#Comparison_with_fat_client
What the big difference between Vamos client to LiveCD/DVD/USB?
The difference is that with Vamos the client does not rely on any type of local media.
What's next?
See the Roadmap
Why you named it Vamos?
- Because "Vamos" in spanish means "let's go" and the project aims to "push" computers to work.
It is a song from the "Pixies":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pixies, a magical band.
It sounds cool and easy to remember..
