[nzlug] machine pre loaded with linux

[Michael Adams]

On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 10:31:37 +1300
Robin Sheat wrote:

> On Tuesday 06 February 2007 09:38, Volker Kuhlmann wrote:
> > No hard disk? I missed that at a glance. Someone mentioned use in
> > the office, I assumed as terminal, but diskless counts as embedded
> > device for which software constraints are much more dominant than
> > for desktops.
> Yeah, my thinking would be have a loader in the 32Mb that mounts all
> your filesystems remotely. Or launches an X-server which XDMCPs to
> another host.
> 
> > 32MB doesn't even allow to run pfsense though, and don't even think
> > of ipcop or home theatre, so I'm wondering what enough people are
> > using a
> 32Mb flash, 128Mb RAM. So it should do most things not too badly, just
> pulling files over a network.
> 
> > Perhaps onto? That's anyone's guess though until you say what you
> > want it for.
> I guess you could put a USB HD in or something, but it seems to not be
> the ideal.
> 

Some comment here seem to suggest you are seeing it as a full computer.
It is not. It is a thin client. All the work gets done by the server
that serves up the applications to be run.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client
This makes it totally unsuitable for games (and even running flash) but
quite usefull in a business environment as a glorified terminal. They
are so cheap a spare can be kept onsite and swaped into place should a
failure occur. The person whose client fell over would notice no
significant change, as /home is on the server. All the money saved
can be poured into a good dual processor server and with 20 clients
or more the IT section would save enough for a good end of year do.

-- 
Michael
 Those that can, do; those that can't, teach.