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Gizmo Turns Old PCs Into Linux-Based Thin Clients
An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices has published an article about the 'PC Reviver', a small device that replaces hard drives in aging computers with a solid-state flash memory drive that boots an embedded Linux OS. The 'revived' computer can then be used as a thin-client network appliance for Citrix, Windows, Linux, and/or browser-based server-centric computing networks."
Save them the time to roll a flash-friendly distro?
You could've hired me.
It seems to me that the "advantages" for this thing are its ease of installation. Literally a "Plug'N'Play" linux with a few nifty tools thrown in to make use as a thin-client a little simpler.
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I dont think its anything that a reasonably experienced linux user couldnt set up on a usb flash "ala - Mandrake-Move" (cept those older Pentium Class PC's will probably not have USB slots. They seem to be claiming the flash drive has fast boot times. Older 4gb drives might not be comparably quick (although I doubt this there are probably other reasons other than RPM and data-seek times) that make their solution nice and quick.
Now what would be really really nice, is to see something like this using one of those tiny hitachi 4gb numbers....
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Even cheaper, burn a Knoppix CD.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Often the hard drive is the most important bottleneck in older machines. I don't know exactly how fast the Flash ROM in this thingy is, but it's surely faster than some random old hard drive.
My guess is that many old machines will be plenty fast enough for use as a terminal (which is the intention of this product) with this bottleneck removed.
Now, if their software is well-done it might well be worth the price, in some situations. If you just replace a hard-drive, you still need to install, configure and administer some sort of OS on it. If what comes with this is better than what you can do in $150 worth of time, it's worth it.
Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja!... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
To some, this may seem pointless, but if it's truely plug-and-play, it could be a boon for many applications.
At home, I have several "older" computers with Windows installed, and they are pretty much used exclusivly as "Remote Desktop termianls" accessing a "server". Being able to eliminate Windows in favor of a quick-booting system would certainly be welcome. And never having to worry about local configuration, local backups, etc. again would be welcome.
But yes, for $150.00, I could set something up myself, but not everyone is as tech-savvy.
Anyone know of a good "do-it-yourself" alternative?
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
This strikes me as one of those neat solutions that sadly won't find a market.
A few years ago, when a new business class PC would run the better part of two thousand bucks, this would make sense. In today's corporate setting a new PC with Windows licence wouldn't cost significantly more than than the PC Reviver.
If your existing stock of PCs are old enough that this is the only way of making them useful, what other hardware failures are looming?
Three Squirrels
Getting rid of a noisy and unreliable harddrive is a definite plus, as anyone who have heard the noise difference between a classroom full of Win95 computers and the same computers running as Linux thin clients without hard drives will agree.
That said, Linux thin clients (LTSP) can easily boot from a floppy or a PXE network card, without needing expensive, specialized flash drives.
Price for the hardware seems high.
Totally agree.
What I'm wondering is if this $150 version is setup to preserve the FLASH? I.e. is there some RAM on board for temp files and the like? Or does it die in a couple years of use because it's been written too many times?
Or does it depend entirely on workstation RAM? (In which case I wonder how much is really needed for decent performance?)
In any case, probably any CD distro would already be setup to not try to write to the boot media so that might be a useful approach as well. (I.e. just dump the CD distro into a FLASH device).
Anybody done anything like this before...?
Save them the time to roll a flash-friendly distro?
/home to a network drive and move /var either to the network or RAM. Knoppix might be a good start, but it's way too big and would need remastered.
Exactly. I have several spare 128m CF cards for my camera. I have the IDE adapter that I bought over a year ago. But I never seem to have time to put together the OS to run on it.
Just need to get a minimal config to run rdesktop, xterm, and VNC. But you also need to mount
It hasn't been a priority, but it would be nice to have a PC/Terminal with no moving parts. Unfortunately, $150 is too much for a hobby project I really don't need. (just want)
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
So you take a fat computer that could already handle browser-based apps, replace the hard drive with a new device and add $150. The end result: less functionality at additional cost.