My name is Sergey Novak and I live in Moldova. It's a small country in the center of Europe. My business is internet cafes and I am going to tell you a story about my new internet cafe.

I was always embarrassed by the fate of computer clubs, which by karma always destined to be placed in the basement. In the basement with a leaky rusty pipes, without ventilation, with dirty walls. It was a good internet gaming computer club if there can be found a point which could be called a toilet. From the earliest days of the internet cafe I am always thinking about how to evade the inevitable karma of internet clubs. Ideal internet club must be full of fresh air, light, spacious, with high transparent windows overlooking the busy main street. And then all the passers-by will see that the Internet is not a club gathering bastards and other antisocial people. It should be and establishment of a completely normal people who came to talk on Skype with relatives, print documents, scan old photos or films.

For many years I worked in this direction, correcting all the mistakes at the expense of current profits. However, there was another problem - the lack of suitable places for business. Some basements were available (in short supply). In 2008, the vibrant economy began to receive less money from abroad. Unnecessary companies began to close. The most of the landlords did not undestand that much has changed for a long time. Assumed that property prices will drop to six to twelve months, after which everything will return to their seats. The first year, prices were holded. Vacant spaces did appear in the city. But price was not still adequate. Real estate owners still were loosing money.

Real estate market in Moldova has the following situation. On low-cost rental space appeared a lot of new companies who do not live long. Rapidly colonized and quickly leave the rent spaces. Those who work for a long time in old rent spaces. Because there is trodden path for many years loyal customers who have business money. Lessor understands the value of the old location for a specific tenant to take this and just laugh at the proposal to reduce the price of the lease. Laughing, being confident that the crisis will end soon and you should not get excited prematurely. Income tenants fall and comes the moment when he realizes that the difference in paid them rent and the market price is too high. Calculated that the change will pay off the premises for the year profitable business moved to new premises, which at the time of his devastated stay was repaired and the tenant finally came to the conclusion that the client must be treasured. A master of the old premises off for a few years to reflect on their behavior and make repairs to their ruins.

I do this business more than 7 years and now I am trying to stop using Windows. In 2009 I found large placement for new internet cafe. After some preparations I've built furniture for internet cafe. Furniture is designed the way allowing not to use classic computer case. All hardware is locked inside the desktop.

The revoltionary thing in this internet cafe is DISKLESS stations. I use Linux Gentoo booted through network file system. You can google a lot of manuals how to boot diskless Gentoo. For server is enough usual Athlon X2/RAM 4G. It does not have a load on server CPU/GPU from each client. Only disk subsystem of server is highly loaded. I have 80 diskless clients and only when all stations are in active use server is starting to slow down. That is why I got new Intel server.

Client hardware is Athlon 215 X2, RAM 2G, internal mainboard video GeForce 8200GT. On some stations I've added GeForce 240GT external cards. But on video you will see only 8200GT results.

KDE Desktop of Linux Gentoo on diskless client

Games list on diskless client

I did open internet cafe doors in september 2010. It was a very nice club for our town. The first day I was suprised why customers do not wait in lines. Nobody wanted to use my new linux diskless station. Nobody wanted to enter door. Nobody wanted to test it. It was a beginning of a very long way to get constant customers flow.

I had the only way to get some customers inside: a large sign "INTERNET FOR FREE TODAY". Just a few people visited our new internet cafe at first day. At second day we got some new people and previous customers with friends. After a week of free internet advertising campaign almost all stations of internet cafe were busy. It was a time to charge customers.

When computer time in internet cafe started to charge all our visitors disapeared. There left only a few real customers who was ready to pay for our services. Every new day we get a few new customers. But was not enought to fill so large computer club.

Here is how it works now.

[... to be continued ... ]

Here is a video of my Linux Gentoo diskless internet cafe in use