Thoughts on thin clients

This board posts about running linux on your webdt366
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quotaholic
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Thoughts on thin clients

Post by quotaholic »

The linuxMCE project has displayed that it is possible to get a standard Debian "Lenny" distribution installed and with all needed drivers and a minimal x configuration. Things like web browsers and some of the comforts of the gui were sacrificed to make this happen. If using MCE's image you know that there is not much room for anything else.

NimbleX and Slax are operating systems that compress the read only files using lzma compression as a plugin to the squashfs. By moving configs and user data out to a writeable partition its possible to have a desktop in 100 megs of installed NimbleX or Slax. This may appeal to you it may not.

Knowing the webDT was designed to be a thin client possibly we should try that out. That being said, how easy would it be to create a vnc connection between the webDT and a host? I dont want to soapbox novell however they do have a client called "rdesktop" that is a compliant client to all systems including citrix and it will also do microsofts remote desktop protocol natively. My gut feeling says that the DT may perform a little better if it controlled a remote box.

If designing a thin client, what's saying it needs to be installed? If we designed a feature filled client and left it as a .raw or an iso or live usb image then we could get a little more in there while still obtaining the level of control we all envisioned when we separated with our money.  Companies like Crestron and AMX sold these to run in this configuration.

Another thought is only using the DT as a remote control. I have an HTPC and I run about three different media center applications on it. All of them offer a web gui for control. If anyone else has such a config and we made a web kiosk out of the DT would that cover our goals?

If anyone has experience setting up remote bootable targets please speak up. I have a CCNP living below me. If nothing else I'll knock on this door once I get my replacement webdt and see if he can offer some insight on setting up a thin client.

Idea's are encouraged
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