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Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

I notice that he started with Linux to create his copy-on-write disk setup and then switched to Windows 7.

I wonder if/when he rebuilds it in Austin if he'll just use Linux, now that Proton has made Linux gaming more feasible.

Indeed, Linux gaming is way more viable now than it was in 2011, and it almost worked in 2011, so it probably works OK now. I have friends who I game with regularly who only use Linux and do OK.

That said I'm currently prioritizing Windows for the new house, because I know it works. Once that's all up and running I will experiment with Linux as well. Netbooting makes it easy to change OS on a whim. :)

One reason Linux would be nicer is that I know how to use a local disk (on the client machine) to hold the copy-on-write overlay, so only the base image need be served over the network (read-only). I have no idea how to make Windows do such a thing (if it's even possible) so I end up having to do all the copy-on-write stuff server-side. If I could use a local disk then it'd be much less of a performance issue when people decide to install extra games during the party.

How does the moving focus of Windows to telemetry, online accounts, and ads, and games to online affect the viability of this?

For the time being I'm installing Windows 10 and setting it up without ever logging into a Microsoft account. (There's a trick during first-time setup where if you disconnect your internet, it lets you create a local-only account.) I haven't actually tried Windows 11, but I hear it makes this significantly harder or maybe impossible, which is definitely making me wary.

People at LAN parties actually do log into their own Steam accounts, but logging the whole machine into a guest's Microsoft account feels worse. Then again, I haven't tried it, maybe it'll turn out convenient, if it lets people sync their settings between machines? Note that at the end of the party, all changes anyone made to any machine are wiped out.

That said it's definitely comforting to have Linux as another option if Microsoft makes Windows unusable for this use case!

If you have a Pro license and you specify you intend to domain join the PC, Windows 11 drops you out to a local account, but there's no escape for Home licenses. It's pretty much impossible to remove that from Windows unless they decide to let you domain join from the OOBE, but that would be too convenient for sysadmins so it'll never happen.

Do you run your own Steam content caching server, or do weekly Steam Backups to have local kinda-recent images of the bigger games (or do you just download it fresh post-wipes)?

I'm not sure about op, but I actually run Lancache (lancache.net) locally on our network. It supports Steam, Windows Updates, Epic games, and pretty much anything else served over http.. (https://github.com/uklans/cache-domains).

This is all assuming you're not using a domain etc.. and have any of the myriad of other tools setup. We run lancache strictly for the fun-net segmented network.

I maintain a primary disk image with all the games installed. During a party, all the machines boot from that same image, except each with a private copy-on-write overlay. Any changes made on a machine are written only to the overlay. At the end of the party I delete the overlays. The primary image remains in exactly the state it was in before the party.

So before each party I just have to install updates on one computer, like a normal person would. No need for a special cache. (Or arguably, the primary image is the "cache".)

Full details and code in this github repo: https://github.com/kentonv/lanparty/

Gotcha, so if there was a big update during a party you'd have to either let everyone update themselves; or delete their overlays, download the update to the primary, and then make new CoW overlays for everyone.

RE: copy on write overlay. There is the Unified Write Filter, but I’m not sure how it interacts with net booting:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/iot/iot-enterprise...

Whoa, that actually sounds perfect! And I kind of expect it should work since Windows basically treats iSCSI boot drives as if they were local.

... but kind of annoying that it requires an Enterprise license.

OK scratch that, it's not "kind of annoying", it's a non-starter. Monthly subscription fee "per user" (whatever that would even mean in my situation), apparently various requirements about how it's configured (must have Active Directory?).

Aaaaand this is why all the cool stuff has to happen on the Linux side, where everything is free.

TBH it's a miracle that Windows Home supports iSCSI boot, you'd think that would be an enterprise feature for sure.

Thanks for the tip though, it was almost really cool! :/

There is a commercial tool, https://www.ccboot.com/, that exists for your use case (gaming center with netbooted clients), and iirc they provide an option for saving CoW to a local disc.

Nice, it's cool to see someone has built this out as a business!

Not the right thing for me personally, since it looks like an end-to-end solution that replaces a lot of stuff I've already figured out and customized to my liking.

Would be interesting to know how they did that local CoW... did they write a custom Windows block device driver?

For LANs, Linux is just too much of a headache since a lot of games require Anti-Cheat that won't run in Linux.

I did that a few times but as soon as someone wants to play Valorant, you're out.

TBH we usually just turn off anti-cheat. No one at a LAN party is going to cheat against other LAN party participants.

It's only an issue if we want to join an internet game but we usually don't really want to deal with internet people anyway.

no one? ;-D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EJXTh4HMAE

Never really understood the appeal of that kind of LAN party TBH. Too many people, not enough socialization opportunity, might as well just play on the internet from home.

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