Comments on: Linux Thin Clients: Lifting Wyse to Biggest Month Ever?

By: WFTL Bytes! for Nov 26, 2008 | WFTL Bytes!

WFTL Bytes! for Nov 26, 2008 | WFTL Bytes! — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:06:18 +0000

[...] – Thanks to Linux thin clients, Wyse has best month ever [...]

By: Mike Connell

Mike Connell — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:10:44 +0000

These guys have been doing stuff in schools for some time, though they are using Sun Ray & Solaris rather than Wyse & Linux. Main downside is the relatively poor AV performance, but you can also bolt on SGD for access via any browser on any platform.

http://www.cutterproject.co.uk

By: web design

web design — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:55:44 +0000

Thin clients are great for business. Talk about bullet proof.

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:26:11 +0000

Mike St. Jean: Happy Thanksgiving and please let us know if/when you do additional deployments. Our readers value your perspective, as does The VAR Guy.

By: Mike St. Jean

Mike St. Jean — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:47:10 +0000

Our school district is up to nearly 2000 HP/Linux thin clients supported by 30 or so terminal servers across 17 schools. We deploy thin clients in every classroom, every lab, every office. There is no question in our minds that this has been the most cost effective, secure, and manageable solution for our permanently underfunded, understaffed urban school district.

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 20:37:44 +0000

Aikiwolfie: You’re onto something. At first, The VAR Guy was skeptical of thin mobile notebooks that required network connections to do anything useful.

When The VAR Guy asked Wyse about that limiting factor, Wyse said “when was the last time you used a full-functioned notebook without a WiFi or Ethernet connection?”

They had a point: The VAR Guy has panic attacks when his full-function notebook lacks a network connection. So it’s easy to see why businesses will accept thin notebooks that “require” such connections to really operate.

By: aikiwolfie

aikiwolfie — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:50:58 +0000

I think thin clients are doing well because everything is networked now and few office workers actually need a whole PC on the desks and they just make everything so much more manageable.

By: Al Hutt

Al Hutt — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 19:30:10 +0000

We’ve been using mostly Neoware thin clients for four years now. They PXE boot via LTSP and work great! This Linux thin client setup is THE WAY to go. Everyone gets a Linux desktop which provides Email, browser. 5250 (AS400) emulation and all the other open source good stuff. Like rdesktop, so we can connect to our Win2003 server for the (few) windows apps we still need, or Eclipse for app development. With LTSP and a Linux desktop I can be logged in simultaneously to 8 servers each of which gives me 18 or more workspaces. Windows can’t touch that at any cost.

When we upgrade any one of our three LTSP servers we just config the other two to pick up the users and do the upgrade. When its ready, we just reboot the neowares and they will download the new OS as they boot. 30 workstations upgraded with just a reboot. THAT is the beauty of thin clients.

Behind the three LTSP servers (workstation grade PCs) is our REAL server,NAS-1 , a Linux server which exports home, data and application directories to the LTSP servers. Behind it is NAS-2 (also Linux) with cron jobs that automatically backup NAS-1 and ssh rsync it to another NAS offsite.

Linux + thin clients are a killer one,two punch that will allow you the best of all worlds. Cheap hardware, reliable, CENTRALLY MANAGED operating system and applications and ZERO, spelled Z-E-R-O $MS licensing costs and headaches.

Thin clients ? Warm. Linux thin clients ? Hot Hot Hot.

Al
Data Processing Adm
Howell-Oregon Electric Cooperative Inc
West PLains Missouri 65775

By: The VAR Guy

The VAR Guy — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:23:46 +0000

Robert, Nickoljt: Thanks for weighing in. You’ve confirmed that customer choice (Windows and Linux support) will help the thin client market to thrive.

Please keep The VAR Guy posted as you roll out additional Wyse solutions — or alternatives. Always good to read about real-world deployments, written by the people who managed the deployments.

By: Robert Pogson

Robert Pogson — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:15:29 +0000

I try to use GNU/Linux for everything because I can understand it and make it work. I think I get a better deal by not paying any licence fee to M$.

The devices I ordered are very flexible. They come with GNU/Linux embedded but can do RDP/XDMCP/NX etc. as well as PXE. Most schools have never seen equipment like this. The ones who have seen it love it. It just works, right out of the box, and keeps on working.

By: nickoljt

nickoljt — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:13:12 +0000

We recently transitioned our Insurance company to a Terminal Server based delivery solution from the typical fat client running on every PC. We purchased the simple Wyse S30 Windows CE based model as a trial for one of the branch offices. Other than a few quirks that the Wyse tech support helped us with it has been a great success.

Price was the deciding factor, and as the Windows CE model was the cheapest for our simple needs (auto launch an RDP connection with USB pass through support) that’s what we went with. I’d have no concerns running a Linux based version either, but having Windows (even Windows CE) gave a bit of comfort to the decision makers for this trial. We will be moving forward with a thin client solution company wide, and based on the good support we’ve received with our small trial they will likely be Wyse terminals.

By: Shannon VanWagner

Shannon VanWagner — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:34:02 +0000

Don’t know about the thin clients, but if they’re anything like the Dell Inspiron 530n preloaded with Ubuntu GNU/Linux, they must be awesome!!

Checkout this article:
Dell Inspiron 530n, NVIDIA 9400GT, Ubuntu preloaded – one word Awesome!
http://healthysystem.blogspot.com/2008/11/dell-inspiron-530n-nvidia-9400gt-ubuntu.html