THIS PAGE NEEDS REWRITE AS IT IS NOT VALID ANYMORE
Introduction
Managing the computer is a complicated task for most PC users. Finding and installing applications updating the software, installing security fixes, organizing personal files – we are constantly shaping our computing environments to fit our needs. We spend immense amount of time at making the computer useful for us, and easy to use. While maintaining a personalized and easy to use environment is complicated on a single computer, it is almost impossible to enjoy the same personalized environment on several computers. All the hard work of installing and configuring is “wasted” on a single computer. What happens when we replace that computer or want to work from another computer?
When a user purchase a new computer for example, he needs to build his environment again – install the operating system, find applications and install them, copy the personal files, etc. These tasks can take days, and sometimes the results are not satisfying.
This problem is originated in the persistence model most PCs work today. Each computer utilize its own private, isolated storage – the hard disk. The user’s software and data are kept only on the personal hard disk of the user. This computing model (AKA fat client) allows computers to operate independently, but causes a tight coupling between the hardware, software and data. The outcome is that a user must work on a specific computer, to access his personal environment.
Today, with modern fast networks, it is possible to store software and data on servers, and to use them on demand from any computer. The computer turns into a stateless processing machine, that can serve any purpose and every user more naturally. Vamos abstracts those personalized computing environments so they can be organized and stored in a central place.
The user should focus on using the computer to accomplish his needs rather than maintain and administrate the computer. Thus, certain tasks such as installing applications should not be part of the user agenda. Software will be streamed to the user on demand. The only thing the user should do is to run the applications as if they were local. Professional administrators can maintain the software for all users.
Scope
The initial scope of the project was to develop diskless client framework. Diskless is great and we recommend working without hard-disks, but it's not really the point. The point is the computing model and not the hardware setup. The model we are working on advocates that the client does not persist any data, or in other words: stateless. As a matter a fact, disks are sometimes helpful for caching so we don't want to completly ignore them.
We support various configurations.
Network type: LAN/Internet
System Integration: chroot/initramfs/virtualiztion
Type of software: full operating system with applications and data/only applications
Features
- Hardware independence – The same system can work on any hardware (similar to livecd), therefore hardware replacement is an effortless procedure.
- Roaming Computer – A user can work on one computer and continue his work on another computer (roam), while the desktop environment remains identical.
- Low-cost, quite, reliable and small computers enabled networks – Forget that big noisy, ugly computer on your desk.
- More scalable, efficient and reliable storage solution.
- Full multimedia and device support (as opposed to thin clients)
- Software maintenance is done in a central place. Installing new software takes place once for all the computers in the network.
Architecture
To be written