> > > > 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 :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
