__/ [ B Gruff ] on Monday 26 June 2006 23:11 \__
> Sheesh - I came across this by chance.
> Any of you guys seen it before - any thoughts?
>
> http://www.omni-ts.com/linux-desktop/overview.html
There are several such kiosk setups available. They are sold as appliances
too, which obviates the need to set them up in a DIY fashion. The largest
one I have seen, if I recall correctly, had 12 nodes. This solution is fine
if you don't do memory/CPU-intensive stuff, or if several nodes are often
unattended (fine for your house, for example, but a shared laptop might be
fine as well).
The multi-user machines are quite neat. Then again, come to consider the fact
that you need multiple monitors while you can get a decent Linux box for
$150, or less. Sharing connections is a different matter altogether. If all
the machines run the same distribution and have similar specs (albeit it's
irrelevant), then you can also duplicate the setting in one machine and
propopgate it to another, e.g. using scp or rsync (just graft the content of
one user/directory onto the other).
> To me, this seems to be the Out of the Box thin-client solution (given
> close
> proximity). In fact, they call it the "zero client" solution!
>
> My initial reaction, even for our own home use, was that it's pretty
> amazing.
> Imagine a family of say 4 or 5 doing "serious" stuff - office work,
> homework, shopping for the home and holidays.... can all be done with a
> single PC.
> That means ONE PC to maintain/administer?
You can manage multiple identical machines at ease. If there is a hardware
failure, you still have a fallback. There is also the possibility of
redundancy arrays, which the above might not offer.
> (I had to smile, after all my coconut questions here re. Thin clients,
> multi-user systems, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.....!)
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