Re: Dumb terminals possible with i386 Debian
> > > > Thin client technology....isn't that what you are talking about?
> > > >
> > > > I have always wondered.............why can't Linux (especially Debian
> > > > Linux) do the same thing Citrix is doing?
> > >
> > > Citrix essentially does what X does a lot less efficiently. X is
> > > pretty much the best thin client technology around. Why would you
> > > want metaframe?
> >
> > I don't want Metaframe. I want to know if the same thing can be done
> > with Linux (especially Debian).
> > What he had was Win2000 with Citrix serving 20 thin client terminals in a
> > town 300 miles away over broadband. These little terminals are
> > manufactured in Taiwan and I can't find the company. They had a little
> > slot in which to stick a little ATM like flash card in order to logon.
> > No moving parts at all in this little unit. You simply plug in a
> > keyboard, monitor, mouse, power, and ethernet, then your little flash
> > card, and you get a Windows screen in which to run all of the Office
> > applications, email and web, from the main windows server in the other
> > town.
> >
> > Thin client boxes are attractive since one does not have to deal with
> > old hardware, failing memory, flaky video cards, hard drives, etc....
> >
> > I want to build a Debian server and be able to serve 50-100 thin clients
> > over a 100Mbps LAN. I can build the server but I am at a loss on how to
> > get a thin client running this way.
> >
> > Anyone doing this with Debian?
>
> I think I have heard about this before. The flash card acts as an
> authentication token and the box is simply a device with a low power CPU
> (don't remember the model) as well as memory. It runs everything off the
> server. Since everything runs off the server, you can simply disconnect
> one session and when you connect from anywhere else you get your desktop
> back just the way you left it, the server keeps track of the state of the
> desktop. They were still connected to the network although I think it was
> only 10bT rather than 100.
>
> You can do something similar with a Debian server and a bunch of terminals.
> The terminals can be old 486 and Pentium boxes with a CPU and memory.
> They just need enough resources to run an X Server. Although a hard drive
> isn't necessary it comes in handy for caching.
>
> You can check out Linux Terminal Server project like someone else mentioned
> and look at some of the How-To's that another poster listed for the thin
> clients.
>
> The only thing is that I don't know of you can maintain state from one
> session to another with this setup. I remember that when I log out of KDE
> it asks if I want to keep these settings for next time but if you simply
> disconnected rather than logging out I think you get a new desktop rather
> than the one you had before.
I found the company finally and actually got my hands on one of
these suckers. Runs Windows CE.NET. Put a trial copy of Win2000 server
on my PowerEdge with Citrix MetaframeXP to try it out. Very nice.
BUT....... I like Linux way more than Windows and that is WHY I was asking
in this thread a while ago if there are any Linux embedded devices
like this unit:
http://www.chippc.com/us/products/OpTC/2620_Overview.htm
People have mentioned in this thread to just go get some old 486 and Pentium
boxes and make them be dumb terminals. No. I really don't want to be messing
around with old boxes. I want something FAST like this unit so you can just
press the reset button (if anything goes wrong) and get going again.
Boots in about 5 seconds.
I think units like this are the future.....they just need embedded Linux :-)
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