Hey, I got my hands on a demo thin client for a few days to play with at
home (It runs Ubuntu - they didn't even know that, the funny thing is
that the solutions-provider knows even less!). 

Anyway, getting the desktop up and running was pretty easy with my
Debian box, but I'm fiddling with audio and having a hard time getting
that to work..

I checked the HOWTO's and the web. There is something called the LTSP
project (has built in support for audio), but I can't use that because
the TC (thin client) uses Ubuntu, and LTSP looks like a lot of work in
terms of getting it to work with this client. Other than that, you can
install something like ESD, aRts, or NAS at the client end, and stream
the audio from the server - problem is that I'm worried about f!ing up
the thin-client by installing pkgs on it; also I couldn't figure out
what pkg-manager Ubuntu uses???

Anyway, after poking around I discovered it had ALSA already installed..
so is there a way to use that?? Any comments/feedback on all this..

32 responses total.

Does it have mplayer?

umm.. not exactly.. it's a thin client, it's supposed to only contain
whatever the server provides. Basically mplayer would run on the server
and the display would be exported to the thin-client.. so.. the Ubuntu
is a heavily stripped down version, with just some basic tools
(ifconfig, ps, X, etc).

*sigh* it's b0rking with the Debian at wrk.

How big  is a 'stripped down' Ubuntu?  I am running a full linux (with
mplayer) in about 75MB.  Several browsers.  Works with 32MB RAM.

Well I vaguely remember that it had a 500MB flash drive with 2
partitions: windows+syslinux and Linux-Ubuntu with (<100MB)

Re #3: oh darn! you weren't being literal. Hmm.. god! i hate how people
sometimes use the written media! Are you asking me how big the stripped
down Ubuntu was, or are you wondering why in heavens name they don't
provide mplayer on the thin client? I'll assume the latter since the
former is covered by #4: They can provide mplayer on the thin client and
given that this little love-bunny has 512MB RAM.. but that's not the
point.

1. What if you need to upgrade mplayer? You can't send the thin-client
back to Taiwan for re-flashing of drive. The drives can't be written to
because they have no moving parts and are supposed to be very stable and
long-lasting (secure, no viruses etc). I know flash drives support being
written to.. but it reduces the life of the drive.
2. Thin clients are good for assembly line type work [coding <g>]
3.Cost reduces (no need for a sys-admin, control over code theft, etc
etc)

I thought you could write to them 10,000 times or so before they failed. What
exactly does this thing look like?

a tiny rectangular box - size of a brick. It's got ports where you stick
your mouse and kybrd and stuff (USB mostly). A port for display..
Theoretically it's 10K times, but in practice it feels like a lot
lesser. Anyway, I told them to ask their Taiwanese guys to tell emm if
we could write to the drive. 

It came with a small Ubuntu already installed?  Can you stick in an external
USB hard drive and boot to it and use your own software?  Or just run
additional programs from external devices?

Re #8: yup, maybe, yup. problem with 3 is that I'll have to static-link
any app i run AND how do i go about compiling stuff for a VIA Eden
processor (i need to look into this)??? 2 - I can't find a boot prompt
to go into the BIOS. Anyway I suppose Del ought to work, but I'm yet to
try that or stick in a USB disk because of the compilation thingy..

eventually I think I'd get it to work :) so far i've just managed to get
it working with GDM (xdmcp) darn thing was b0rking at wrk because I was
running it on an external interface (non 192.168) - apparently some sort
of GDM security measure

What is GDM?

Gnome Desktop Manager (google that you beast!) Anyway, what you do is,
run "X :0 -connect GDMServer" on your thin client. The thin client will
connect to the server which is running GDM, and GDM+greeterProgram will
send you a GUI-Login prompt (just the image) which is rendered by your X
program on the thin client's display. You will then wind up with your
Desktop, which is running on the server, but which is displayed
(rendered) on the thin-client. The thing is, theoretically, because of
shared libraries, with 50 users, your memory usage ought to reduce and
so might CPU usage.. but practically speaking I think the whole thing
sucks monkeys dick (as Chad is won't to put it :)

seriously this is disgusting, the guys selling the client only know how
to do it on WindowsCE, so I have to hoof it and I'm not even getting
paid for all this. I've got it working and I'm finding it hard to
let-go.. was wondering what kind of performance you'd see, and if the
switch will die first (I'll need to plot cpu/memory/netwrk usage)..? How
the heck do you measure memory usage in Linux even! I'll use Xming to
load the server :)
They've got a quad processor :) :) with 2GB RAM and a 6-10Mbit link
:)for "downloading" Debian :) In fact i ran out of movies to dl because
I wasn't aware of the names..

Type 'free' for memory usage (in a terminal or equivalent).

Re #13: very funny. use exmap instead. there are some articles by Lunas
Lubos (KDE dev) on why ps and free sux.

What is funny about 13?  Exmap appears to require GTK (which wastes memory).

Re #15: Sindi, free isn't going to be of much use - it clubs usage. The
thing is that with thin clients, usage is going to be bursty, so they
would need to plot usage over a month (MRTG for that), but data
collection has to be accurate (vmstat 2 :)). With 25 users/server,
running Xming on the client (XP - they don't have enough thin clients),
it should be a accurate..

Pfft, GTK may "waste" memory, but data presented nicely can save time
given that we aren't the Borg just yet. I like your minimalistic life
thing, but ya shouldn't turn into a sloth.. (consumes very little, but
winds up not "doing" much). Mind you, I haven't exactly got exmap
working.. it requires a kernel compile on Debian, and I'm feeling lazy.
Debian rocks! It's rock solid! My TFT was f!ing up on Fedora 10 and I
put Etch on it and bingo! And apt-get -t seems to be an interesting
option. I think I'd better give up on Fedora permanently!

You really should move over to the dark-side and consider Windows or
GUI-Debian. Frugality is nice but rarely at the cost of wasting time
learning stupid commands! You should check out olvwm :) rocks! I'll send
you my cfg files, or XFCE which I didn't like very much but it's better
than KDE/GNOME in terms of bloat.

Man! Managers blabber like deranged loons (Virtualization)! Grr! How
could virtualization solve fundamental CPU/Mem issues! And that guy is
drawing 9 lakhs in salary and comes in at 9AM! I had to go to the
clients place, and it's not even my project, and this guy was saying
"they don't know anything, relax etc etc" and we got our asses handed to
us! None of our guys knew anything about Linux and obviously the client
had the 2-team-leads (Java-devs) interrogating us and this manager-bozo
had got the requirements wrong even (apparently JBOSS/MySQL was supposed
to run on a per user basis!)

http://lwn.net/Articles/104179/ *snicker* That's what the devs nailed my
ass on :(

We used XP to print a photo because it has the printer drivers, but it takes
much much longer to boot or accomplish anything else.  My linux can boot in
under 10 seconds from when you push the on button.  Lynx loads instantly. 
Knoppix or Ubuntu are nearly as slow as Windows, loading all sorts of
irrelevant junk, and I find guis annoying and they force you to use a mouse
which also slows down everything.

Re #20: what sort of BIOS/monitor do you use - It takes 17 sec for me to
get to GRUB (Celeron 400Mhz i810 board). Does Lynx support tabbed
browsing or do you wind up opening 8 consoles for 8 web pages? What
distro, processor, RAM do you use? 10sec is pretty much an impossibility
unless it's heavily tweaked or re-built from scratch - my Debian takes
around 40-60 seconds after GRUB loads. X/olvwm on the other hand takes
5seconds to load with 4 xterms. Have you actually measured stuff? I
pretty much keep the default install (because of lib dependencies) but
switch to runlevel 2/3 and avoid starting the default X. Instead I just
untar olvwm and use startx.

What about wine, java/javascript browsing, downloading yahoo mail and
cd/dvd burning? What editor do you use? Xemacs is marginally more of a
memory-hog but you can squeeze more lines into it, ditto xterms. That
improves readability and with color-highlighting.. you should check out
olvwm with my cfg files (the default cfg sucks).

I installed linux to a laptop with 96MB RAM that runs at 120MHz.  16MB is also
adequate if not running a graphical browser.  Lynx runs in one console and
if you want to see a previous page you hit backspace and choose from history
(or back arrow for previous page).  My linux is Basiclinux based on Slackware.
I normally don't use X at all, just to run OPera if I need javascript at some
page.  Otherwise lynx, if I need embedded graphics link2s.  I don't use wine,
or java, or yahoo mail.  I don't download mail, I use pine at grex or sdf.
I can burn CDs.  I don't have a DVD burner.  I can play dvds with mplayer on
a 500Mhz machine with -hardframedrop, using X or svga.  I use Xvesa but a
larger X would be faster (accelerated) though taking more memory.  I use pico
as a text editor (or e3pi) or nano if I want more features.  Or vi.  Or Jim's
4K DOS text editor under dosemu, which will also run a 35K DOS 3D CAD program.
Lynx can access fastmail account (so can any other browser with SSL support).

I set up the laptop to dual boot 2K or linux.  A few seconds to the boot menu,
then 9 sec to load linux.  Takes longer with a larger partition (this one is
about 100MB) because it checks the drive briefly.  In 75MB I have links2,
links2, lynx, elinks, opera (I could add dillo and netrik and arena), and
mplayer.  I forget if that includes timidity midi player (takes up a lot of
space with patch files).  I can listen to streaming mp3 or ogg or rm files,
or watch low-bandwidth internet TV.  I can burn CDs, display images, print
them with netpbm or ghostscript, display pdfs with ghostscript using svgalib
program svp as a frontend (or xpdf but it is slower and needs X).  I have
kermit with ftp, dbclient and dropbear (ssh client and server) telnet, httpd,
wget, and many other things.    I have an excel to html and a powerpoint to
html convertor, and a word to text convertor, and a collection of fonts (I
can convert Russian from .doc to something readable with linux).  I have
msmtp, an authenticating mail program, and base64 to encode attachments.  CD
and wave players.  PDA software.  scp for secure file transfer.

A small window manager jwm (or icewm) with calendar and clock and menu, and
an X-based viewer xli.  I rarely use it.

I have pcmcia support and can use modem or network card or other cards.;
I have gone online at the library with the laptop.  2K was taking 13 minutes
to boot until I unchecked all the startup items (including AVG) and half the
processes using msconfig from XP - I don't have a LAN, or smartcard, or UPS,
etc.  Got it down to 2.5minutes, but adding back a virus checker added another
3 minutes.  My linux does not need antivirus.

It does not come with 50MB of printer drivers so I have not succeeded in
printing color photos in the correct colors, but I can print them in black
and white just fine.  

I have sqlite database and sqlite spreadsheet.  A small console calculator
plus the graphical one.  Magicpoint presentation software.

I run out of memory rotating large photos in less than 90 degree increments,
or trying to view large websites with Opera, in 24MB memory.  But even 96MB
is not enough to keep Win2K from slowing to a crawl.  

There is a solitaire game and a few others.  I don't do games.
I can view files in Russian, Greek, Armenian, and other console fonts.
I can view various numbers of lines and columns.

I can do almost all of this without a mouse.
I can use this as a terminal plugged into a serial port, or via a network
card, or parallel port, or wirelessly, with kermit or ftp or ssh, or as a
server, to share a modem connection or do file transfer.  I can network with
Windows and run linux programs in Windows that way (use linux as a server).

Show off :p you could have just said that it meets all your requirements
<g> though It's almost like archaeology :) 

pfft! -hardframedrop doesn't work all that great on avi and mkv files -
the whole trouble here is that you don't pirate stuff, ergo your media
is limited <g> . I get almost no excel or powerpoint stuff, but I see a
lot of chm, pdb, pdf and html files (pirated books). Music wise, I
seldom listen to streamed audio. What sort of pkg manager does
BasicLinux use - tar.gz and compile with deps? Do you have any
experience configuring GUI's (i'm just asking, I know it's unlikely -
I've been pondering the mysteries of removing all the garbage on the
default menu and adding my own menu in Gnome/KDE/XFCE)??

I like my GUI-Desktop, but I wish I had more GUI apps like a decent
FileBrowser (explorer.exe, Konqueror is slow and works nicely only on
KDE) or a burner which wasn't so damn slow (K3B is slow).. On the whole,
I'd rather avoid Linux, if I could, because of the lack of a decent GUI
and the need to tweak :p unfortunately, in practice, I spend most of my
time on Linux :p btw check out sshfs, awesome tool!

installpkg, removepkg in the 'newer' version of my linux, or a little script
'pkg' that simply untars on / and runs the install script in the 'older' one
and remove things manually.  But I don't install entire packages, I just copy
over what I need, symlink, and make sure I have dependencies.  You can edit
the menu of any window manager with a text editor.  I have never tried to read
a chm file.  svp is a nice svgalib frontend for ghostscript to read pdf, or
you can convert it to bitmap or extract the images or text.  pdb is a palmos
database and I have compiled some convertors and sql.  I have never had to
view an avi, just dvds.

Re #0: Have you checked that the X terminal doesn't come
  pre-configured with NAS?  Also, out of interest, will it
  boot via PXE?

what's NAS? Network Area Storage? How could a X terminal come
pre-configured for that (you mean like pre-configured NFS mount)? I
asked about PXE actually, because I wanted to try out that LTSP kernel,
but my question is moving down the supply chain. Far as I could tell,
it's in a shark's tummy and slowly moving towards Taiwan. Right now, the
client boots up Linux (Ubuntu) and you get a xterm. It also supports
rdp/ssh/telnet/X11/VNC/etc

    NAS is the Network Audio System and aims to do for audio
what the MIT X window system does for graphics (i.e. work
transparently across a network).  Learn more at...

              http://www.radscan.com/nas.html

oh duh! thanks Andy. Question: How do I compile that NAS pkg on the
thin-client (it has no compiler etc). What if I want to build a custom
kernel for the thin client?? It uses a VIA Eden processor (500MHZ)

    In short, you don't. If your terminal has sound hardware
it should ship with something like NAS or PulseAudio enabled
out of the box.  If it doesn't, talk to your vendor (though
based on what you've written here they don't sound very
clueful).  Failing that, I would concentrate on getting the
thing to boot LTSP via PXE.  Btw, what does dmesg|grep cpu
yield?

Re #29: dmesg|grep -i cpu; the output is kind of voluminous and I don't
know how to cut and paste it out of the thin-client. (I mailed the
admins and asked them to do it - as I said earlier, I brought it home
for a week to play with. After the failed demo, I've been out of the
loop.)

Was there anything specific you were looking for? It uses a VIA Eden
processor.. I also checked for nas and pulseaudio and it wasn't there
(just alsa). I'm thinking that this should be Intel compatible or
running something that matches the Intel cmd-set.

The thin-client is called a A3300. Supplier: Astec Tech Co. Spec sheet:
www.astecinc.com.tw/pdf/a3300_0.pdf

    Eden is a brand, that just signifies a VIA processor
(C3 or C7 mostly I think) that runs cool enough to not
require a fan on the heatsink.  I'll ask some people whether
ALSA can work across a network.

wo! thanks Andy! Don't sweat it though, it's interest only (and zank you
for the C3/C7 bits).

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