"While this series is not an Ethernet HOWTO, I received
a surprising amount of e-mail from readers protesting what they
seem to interpret as an endorsement of Thinnet. A bit of
clarification is in order.
There are few technical reasons not to use twisted-pair and 10-
or 100BaseT Ethernet if that is what you prefer, and don't mind
spending the money. Any up-to-date book on networks explains the
advantages of this newer technology. My advice is for 50 or fewer
devices, don't rip out an existing Thinnet installation and upgrade
to new NICs and cabling thinking this will increase performance.
For 50 or more PC X terminals, however, the equation tilts in the
other direction.
Because practical use of X on Linux requires beefier graphics
cards than Windows 3.x or Windows 95 (see part 2 for details), it
might seem intuitive that running remote X applications will
require tremendous network bandwidth. Not true! The X Window System
is lean and elegant. As a result, packet collisions, network
latency, and bandwidth are non-issues for networks of 40 or fewer
PC X terminals."
