Thin Client Hardware for k12ltsp

Discussion:

Joe Fagliarone

2014-02-24 12:33:08 UTC

Hello all. This is my first post here. I have enjoyed reading (and
learning) all the other posts. Great information.

I have a centos 6.3 and k12 ltsp environment.

I currently have thin clients that are old (almost 10 years) and are in
need of replacement. Parts are breaking due to age and are harder to come
by. I have been getting parts on amazon and other sites.

However I wanted to hear what kind of hardware are you using for your thin
clients.

WYSE
HP
Self-configured thin clients.

Thank you.

Joe

Jeff Siddall

2014-02-24 18:18:18 UTC

Permalink

Post by Joe Fagliarone
Hello all. This is my first post here. I have enjoyed reading (and
learning) all the other posts. Great information.
I have a centos 6.3 and k12 ltsp environment.
I currently have thin clients that are old (almost 10 years) and are in
need of replacement. Parts are breaking due to age and are harder to
come by. I have been getting parts on amazon and other sites.
However I wanted to hear what kind of hardware are you using for your
thin clients.
WYSE
HP
Self-configured thin clients.

Self configured for me. I could never find any off the shelf clients
that had everything I wanted at a reasonable price.

By far my favorite all-around client has been the D945GSEJT with Morex
T1610 case:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Intel_D945GSEJT_with_Morex_T1610

Thin, fanless, easy to assemble, reliable, well supported. The only
thing wrong with them is the GPU which really can't do anything accelerated.

For boxes where I needed proper 3D support I went with a Zotac IONITX board.

Sadly the D945GSEJT is now EOS and the Intel replacements I last looked
into (granted a while ago) all had issues with Linux GPU drivers.

Something like this may still be a viable option though:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856173032

However, it lacks the fanless aspect and is significantly more power hungry.

Jeff

William Fragakis

2014-02-26 15:46:02 UTC

Permalink

We've recently found a number of off-lease and refurb i686 hp clients
(as opposed to the earlier Cyrix, etc. which require an i386 boot
image). These are primarily the t5730/35 and t5740/45 with Sempron and
Atom processors respectively. The 5740 doesn't play well with EL 6.4 and
earlier so you may need to create a boot image like we did from Debian.

A number of these units have embedded WinXP so as XP sunsets this year,
you may see more of them appearing.

If you buy lots on ebay, you can get them from anywhere from $25-60 per
unit shipped. Just make sure they include power supplies. The 574x run
more because of the Atom cpu but both models tend to come with 1-2gb RAM
often with stands and even keyboards and mice. The 573x are also a touch
larger.

Refurb desktops aren't much more and readily available, too, but use
more space and power.

Regards,
William
- sent from my t5740 running K12Linux

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 13:18:18 -0500
Subject: Re: [K12OSN] Thin Client Hardware for k12ltsp
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Self configured for me. I could never find any off the shelf clients
that had everything I wanted at a reasonable price.
By far my favorite all-around client has been the D945GSEJT with Morex
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Intel_D945GSEJT_with_Morex_T1610
Thin, fanless, easy to assemble, reliable, well supported. The only
thing wrong with them is the GPU which really can't do anything accelerated.
For boxes where I needed proper 3D support I went with a Zotac IONITX board.
Sadly the D945GSEJT is now EOS and the Intel replacements I last looked
into (granted a while ago) all had issues with Linux GPU drivers.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856173032
However, it lacks the fanless aspect and is significantly more power hungry.
Jeff
------------------------------
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Joe Fagliarone

2014-03-05 01:24:55 UTC

Permalink

Thank you very much for the info. I am currently supporting a school
environment that is running k12linux on centos. The hardware is very old
and I am looking to be prepared to upgrade as necessary.

Thank you!

Joe Fagliarone

Post by William Fragakis
We've recently found a number of off-lease and refurb i686 hp clients
(as opposed to the earlier Cyrix, etc. which require an i386 boot
image). These are primarily the t5730/35 and t5740/45 with Sempron and
Atom processors respectively. The 5740 doesn't play well with EL 6.4 and
earlier so you may need to create a boot image like we did from Debian.
A number of these units have embedded WinXP so as XP sunsets this year,
you may see more of them appearing.
If you buy lots on ebay, you can get them from anywhere from $25-60 per
unit shipped. Just make sure they include power supplies. The 574x run
more because of the Atom cpu but both models tend to come with 1-2gb RAM
often with stands and even keyboards and mice. The 573x are also a touch
larger.
Refurb desktops aren't much more and readily available, too, but use
more space and power.
Regards,
William
- sent from my t5740 running K12Linux

accelerated.

For boxes where I needed proper 3D support I went with a Zotac IONITX

board.

Sadly the D945GSEJT is now EOS and the Intel replacements I last looked
into (granted a while ago) all had issues with Linux GPU drivers.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856173032
However, it lacks the fanless aspect and is significantly more power

hungry.

Jeff
------------------------------
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https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
End of K12OSN Digest, Vol 115, Issue 11
***************************************

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Jim Kinney

2014-03-05 12:53:15 UTC

Permalink

This was just shared on another list I'm on.

http://nanopc.org/NanoPC-T1_Feature.html

It's arm so it gets treated a bit different. With 4G flash storage, it
makes sense to preload a base OS that does the remote X back to a CentOS
server. At $70, it's cheap enough to tinker with.

Post by Joe Fagliarone
Thank you very much for the info. I am currently supporting a school
environment that is running k12linux on centos. The hardware is very old
and I am looking to be prepared to upgrade as necessary.
Thank you!
Joe Fagliarone

Post by Joe Fagliarone
need of replacement. Parts are breaking due to age and are harder to
come by. I have been getting parts on amazon and other sites.
However I wanted to hear what kind of hardware are you using for your
thin clients.
WYSE
HP
Self-configured thin clients.

accelerated.

For boxes where I needed proper 3D support I went with a Zotac IONITX

board.

hungry.

_______________________________________________
K12OSN mailing list
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/k12osn
For more info see <http://www.k12os.org>

Jeff Siddall

2014-03-05 13:59:15 UTC

Permalink

Post by Jim Kinney
This was just shared on another list I'm on.
http://nanopc.org/NanoPC-T1_Feature.html
It's arm so it gets treated a bit different. With 4G flash storage, it
makes sense to preload a base OS that does the remote X back to a CentOS
server. At $70, it's cheap enough to tinker with.

If you are looking for really inexpensive how about a Raspberry Pi at $25?

http://www.berryterminal.com/doku.php

There are some downsides to consider, especially on the administrative
side, since they clients are technically no longer thin.

Jeff

Les Mikesell

2014-03-05 16:18:28 UTC

Permalink

Post by Jim Kinney
This was just shared on another list I'm on.
http://nanopc.org/NanoPC-T1_Feature.html
It's arm so it gets treated a bit different. With 4G flash storage, it makes
sense to preload a base OS that does the remote X back to a CentOS server.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a minimal OS distribution (arm
or x86) that can boot into x2go?

--
Les Mikesell
***@gmail.com

William Fragakis

2014-03-05 17:55:52 UTC

Permalink

Jim,
Could one build an arm client image off of a present Fedora version?

Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong, the base Pi board is $25-30, and then you
need those little optional bits like case, power adapter, most likely
hdmi to whatever your monitor is converter, etc. Kits I've seen put it
around $65-70 for something you can plug in and power on.

regards,
William

Post by Jim Kinney

Post by Jim Kinney
This was just shared on another list I'm on.
http://nanopc.org/NanoPC-T1_Feature.html
It's arm so it gets treated a bit different. With 4G flash storage,

Post by Jim Kinney
makes sense to preload a base OS that does the remote X back to a

CentOS

Post by Jim Kinney
server. At $70, it's cheap enough to tinker with.

If you are looking for really inexpensive how about a Raspberry Pi at
$25?
http://www.berryterminal.com/doku.php
There are some downsides to consider, especially on the
administrative
side, since they clients are technically no longer thin.
Jeff

Jim Kinney

2014-03-05 20:22:53 UTC

Permalink

William,

I've not built one. However, there _is_ a fedora image for arm:
http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora#arm

pidora is a fedora specifically for Raspi.

Not: all that is needed for LTSP is the kernel, libs, sound, X and libs and
network. The server will still run x86_64 code

I'm giving a hard look at the BeagleBone Black (all open source hardware!)
and less than the nanopc ($65 including case and power brick from adafruit)
http://www.adafruit.com/category/75
Fedora has a full distro for it.

I'm nowhere near ready but I'm seeing mental happy lights with a tiny box
that runs local code to get a web page connect to a OVIRT login page. A bit
of tweaking at a local arm-based spice client and these tiny boxes run a
full VM distro (build 1 and clone the rest for maintenance ease and shared
code for slim running) with a web-based management tool that is pretty easy
to maintain dozens to hundreds of VMs. Sound _JustWorks_. USB _JustWorks_.

Post by William Fragakis
Jim,
Could one build an arm client image off of a present Fedora version?
Jeff, correct me if I'm wrong, the base Pi board is $25-30, and then you
need those little optional bits like case, power adapter, most likely
hdmi to whatever your monitor is converter, etc. Kits I've seen put it
around $65-70 for something you can plug in and power on.
regards,
William

Post by Jim Kinney

Post by Jim Kinney
This was just shared on another list I'm on.
http://nanopc.org/NanoPC-T1_Feature.html
It's arm so it gets treated a bit different. With 4G flash storage,

Post by Jim Kinney
makes sense to preload a base OS that does the remote X back to a

CentOS

Post by Jim Kinney
server. At $70, it's cheap enough to tinker with.

If you are looking for really inexpensive how about a Raspberry Pi at
$25?
http://www.berryterminal.com/doku.php
There are some downsides to consider, especially on the
administrative
side, since they clients are technically no longer thin.
Jeff

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--
--
James P. Kinney III

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain
at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain

*http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
<http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/>*

Jeff Siddall

2014-03-06 16:19:38 UTC

Permalink

Yes, definitely more than $25 when all is said and done. For a thin
client you are probably better off with the extra RAM and onboard wired
Ethernet of the B model at $35. Add to that a USB power supply ($5), a
case ($8) and a SD card ($7) and you are at $55. Since all clients will
require a keyboard, mouse and monitor I have not included accessories in
the cost of the client itself.

If you consider shipping the Pi is also likely to save some money over
things like the nanopc given the local distributors.

Still, things like performance, sound, VGA, PXE, localapps etc. are all
missing from the ARM clients I have seen.

For about $65 more you can get an x86 client that can do all those things:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135368 ($62)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811208056 ($35)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226018 ($23)

Of course more power, bigger, noisier etc. It's all about tradeoffs.

Personally I run only x86 clients.

Jeff

Sergio Chaves

2014-03-06 23:22:56 UTC

Permalink

I have ordered 02 of the Cubox-i2 to play with - http://cubox-i.com/table/ .
Check the videos and screenshots, looks real promising to me.

Sergio

Post by Jeff Siddall

Yes, definitely more than $25 when all is said and done. For a thin
client you are probably better off with the extra RAM and onboard wired
Ethernet of the B model at $35. Add to that a USB power supply ($5), a
case ($8) and a SD card ($7) and you are at $55. Since all clients will
require a keyboard, mouse and monitor I have not included accessories in
the cost of the client itself.
If you consider shipping the Pi is also likely to save some money over
things like the nanopc given the local distributors.
Still, things like performance, sound, VGA, PXE, localapps etc. are all
missing from the ARM clients I have seen.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135368 ($62)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811208056 ($35)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226018 ($23)
Of course more power, bigger, noisier etc. It's all about tradeoffs.
Personally I run only x86 clients.
Jeff
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Barry Cisna

2014-03-05 19:12:26 UTC

Permalink

Hello All,

Jim Kinney, or anyone. Have you tried the nanopc units that you
mentioned in your post? Is the performance acceptable for web browsing
and Youtubes,flash,etc? If so these look hard to beat for the physical
size,and simplicity

Thank You,
Barry

Jim Kinney

2014-03-05 20:26:17 UTC

Permalink

Barry,

I don't have one. I have a tablet with about 1/2 the horsepower as that
cpu. It's usable for web work. I loaded the spice client and can connect
and run remove VM's if I plug in a keyboard.

tablet was $80 at Target. Don't recall the brand (it's at home).

Note: those NanoPCs seem to only have hdmi output for video.

Post by Barry Cisna
Hello All,
Jim Kinney, or anyone. Have you tried the nanopc units that you
mentioned in your post? Is the performance acceptable for web browsing
and Youtubes,flash,etc? If so these look hard to beat for the physical
size,and simplicity
Thank You,
Barry
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For more info see <http://www.k12os.org>