Like this guy did ?

To be honest, the guy could have also installed windows XP on the pentium 133 so long as he had enough ram or patience. I have seen Windows XP installed on a Pentium 133 with 96mb of ram before.

I suppose running Windows XP using LTSP will mean better performance as the faster C2D is doing all the heavy processing and the pentium is basically a dumb terminal.

with all the effort of that, you might as well sit down at the Core 2 Duo.

all he did was prove that it could work, with the aid of a newer computer.

P1 is dead. P2 is dead unless it's a Xeon and it's run in at least pairs, P3 can run linux well, P4 is the "older" standard.

if you need to use a host machine to run the OS, you aren't running it on a P1.

Yes. He might've well just used a KVM and have the virtual machine be displayed at the other monitor.


Now that would have been the green way of doing it (because the P1 is using power).

Everyone:

He used 1 server for 1 client, but he could have used it for 10 clients...
Like this person did for a medical office in brazil.

Computers use energy in their life, but they also require *a lot* for when being manufactured.

If you can run 10 old pentium 1 computer and achieve exactly the same as if you had bought 10 new ones, which is possible if all you do is browsing/office, then you saved a lot of energy and ressources

+ your thin clients dont even hard HDD (save more energy)

good for schools, libraries, (work?)..

Thinking like this is very sad.

Firstly, 2 or 15 users can't just sit down at the C2D, the point is expandability.

Taking easy to find, cheap, previously manufactured equipment and making it usable again, not to mention centralizing maintainence and reducing wasted CPU cycles on the C2D should be applauded rather than derided.

I think that if you actually expand on this idea and actually use multiple low end computers, this would make sense. But I agree that with only one client, it doesn't make sense. It's an interesting proof of concept though.

Of course it makes sense.

If you have another person in the house who wants a computer of their own, whose usage won't be particularly demanding and you have a P1 laying about, it saves the cost of another computer and lets you recycle a previously unused PC.

Of course more clients=more sense, but one client still makes sense.

Good point. One client would make sense in this situation. I kinda assumed that he did this so he could make use of the P1. Bad assumption.

edit - first post can't include links

This time with links included

so basically he's turned his old machine into a terminal.

there are plenty of other options to turn your old machine into a terminal....
http://www.thinstation.org/
http://diet-pc.sourceforge.net/
http://www.rdesktop.org/

You don't even have to have a linux host - most of the above support RDP... and if you want your standard, Windows XP machine to support more than one session at a time there are plenty of hacks to allow this such as http://www.golod.com/2005/10/enabling-m ... tion-2005/

Interesting stuff.

I believe that the person I linked to uses rdesktop, I'ld need to re-read it.

There are many terminals around. The person I linked to is interesting because it's a windows terminal, so your users dont need to learn linux..

I just read the actual article (only skimmed before) - he's basically using linux as a host to run virtualbox which is then RDPed into. If you are using XP as a host, all you need to do is the above mentioned hack, and create sepearate users for each person who wants to connect (or different users for each station and auto-login)

I ran an old p2 that I had for a long time as a terminal to my XP machine. This was otherwise known as my wife's PC.

I've since bought two actual terminal devices similar to this one... you'll easily be able to pick up a completely silent terminal box for under $20 shipped if you watch for auctions... monitor/mouse/and keyboard become the most expensive parts. http://cgi.ebay.com/WYSE-WINTERM-MICROS ... 0106600051

Some of these terminal devices even support touch panels - I don't know the model, but my brother has one that he mounted inside of a wall as part of a home automation system for controlling lights, celing fans, the thermostat, etc.

edit:
teststrips -- this is getting more interesting by the minute.



never mind the questions; ive done my homework.

just ordered a wyse to test thinstation. awesome stuff.

hey - if you have a kill-a-watt (or other power meter) - measure it for me... Often wondered how much power these use... I'm assuming something low like 20 watts or less, but it would be neat to know for sure (without having to buy a $20 power meter)

Will do, I can get them for free at the library.

Just to make sure, I *can* run Thinstation on a Wyse Winterm 1200Le,right?
And the whole point of thinstation on wyse is that it will be faster than Wise's embedded OS when connecting to my hacked windows xp?

Thanks
S.

I'm not sure if that particular model is X86 based or not.. not finding much in the specs, however you shouldn't HAVE to load any special firmware on it - it supports RDP out of the box - you'll likely be able to put in your XP machine's Host name or IP address in as a "terminal server". My model allows me to save a default username and password to connect with. My units basically auto-connect and auto-login when turned on with the Wyse firmware.

Limitations for these types of boxes wind up being display resolution (though 1280x1024 is pretty good) and most units won't allow you to plug in things like USB drives to transfer files, etc... (you have to actually put the USB drive in the HOST machine, not the client)

was curious how things went with your thinstation

P3 can run Windows XP perfectly fine. P2 will be noticeably slower but a P3 or early Athlon can cruise right along. Especially with a newer hard hard drive and plenty of memory.

haha - dont mention it
i didnt get a pwoer supply with the wyse winterm.. :/

A friend of mine should give me an old 1999 computer anytime soon. She doesnt even know what it is.. My guess is p3 / celeron.. we'll see.

I skipped the ubuntu ltsp visualization step and just use xp pro with multiple concurrent rdp hack.
Then used a puppy cd image from the fallowing site to install thin clients on some p2's.
Setting up a Windows/Linux Hybrid "Thin" Client
Works great! thin clients boot right to rdp logon screen.

I'm about to do just that too, sounds easier for the windows part. The thing is , if I ever want to deploy this on a larger, (and legal scale), I'll probably need to built a edubuntu server on the side. I'll cross he bridge when I get there.


Thinstation (linux) does pretty much that too. Have you tried both, care to compare them for me/us?

I've installed thinstation on an older athlon with a k7s5a motherboard (not that thin actually) just to test it. It goes straight to the linux desktop, where I can choose whatkind of server I want to connect to.

I didnt work hard on it, but I couldnt get the sound to work on the client station.