Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on April 15, 2005 12:47 AM
Thin clients are my bread-and-butter.
1) The number of users given is for usage with the X protocol. Using something lighter like VNC, terminal services (rdesktop) or Citrix' ICA allows for a lot more users (in the 10 thousand range). In my experience, also, VNC doesn't work very well (even under Linux). rdesktop and ICA are *much* better. I have yet to test Nomachine's NX...
2) While it's true that 486 would work, in practice they're unusable. Things like Macromedia Flash, scrolling thru texts (which is done locally on the thin client itself) require a faster machine. I've tested a 266Hz machine and deemed unacceptable. I suspect a x86 500MHz would be minimally satisfactory; a 733MHz machine proved ok.
3) Beware of programs that monopolize the CPU, one user might stop the whole show. Although uncommon in Linux/Unix, this happens all the time in a certain monopolistic OS...
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Posted by: Anonymous Coward on April 15, 2005 12:47 AM1) The number of users given is for usage with the X protocol. Using something lighter like VNC, terminal services (rdesktop) or Citrix' ICA allows for a lot more users (in the 10 thousand range). In my experience, also, VNC doesn't work very well (even under Linux). rdesktop and ICA are *much* better. I have yet to test Nomachine's NX...
2) While it's true that 486 would work, in practice they're unusable. Things like Macromedia Flash, scrolling thru texts (which is done locally on the thin client itself) require a faster machine. I've tested a 266Hz machine and deemed unacceptable. I suspect a x86 500MHz would be minimally satisfactory; a 733MHz machine proved ok.
3) Beware of programs that monopolize the CPU, one user might stop the whole show. Although uncommon in Linux/Unix, this happens all the time in a certain monopolistic OS...
HTH.
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