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Compaq Announces Thin Client Running Linux
ansible writes "
Saw this story on Techweb.com: Compaq has announced thin client hardware, including one that runs Linux. " The most interesting thing
is the fact that the thin clients have a PCMCIA port and 2 USB ports.
USB? Wouldn't it be swell if Compaq had some code for us? (he says
eyeing the unusable USB port on his desktop and laptop)
Take a visit to the somewhat out of date Linux USB homepage: www.linux-usb.org
Both USB Host Controllers (UHCI and OHCI), Keyboards, Mice, Printers, some bulk devices (Hard Drive's, Floppies, etc) and some webcams have drivers off the top of my head.
With many more to come and it's all in 2.3!
Given that USB is not really a stable thing in Linux yet - what USB stack are Compaq going to be using on this device? Other than that it sounds pretty cool.
I have a laptop, and I use a USB mouse just fine. It's even a PowerPC laptop, so I'm using a Linux kernel configuration Linus largely ignores... and it still works, with kernel 2.2.12.
--
Look, it's a taint-free thin-client machine!
It's interesting to note that they couldn't manage to cram a decent web browser onto Windows CE. It's a good thing we have Linux instead.
Compaq is okay in my book, provided they don't mess up the Alpha too much. It's nice to see them not completely locked into the Microsoft vendor path.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I would defninitly like to see some of that USB code. Does anyone know of anything like the Aero 8000 that runs linux well. I could realy use a thin client laptop that I can use around campus and run porgrams remotely.
But the USB deal is just one of many things that is keeping Linux from taking greater hold in the desktop market. Once Linux gets things like more games, USB, cutting edge hardware/driver support, etc. then people will consider Linux as a viable alternative to Windows or Mac. I think this is an important step in the evolution of the OS. If Comapq could see their way clear to releasing some code for their USB implementation, then it would certainly help, and others might follow their lead.
I'd really like to see a big name company like Compaq seriously embrace Linux and give back what it develops.
-B
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
A thin client that "doesn't have the taint of Microsoft". Well, Well. It's designed to run Windows terminal server remotely. What in hell is that if it isn't Microsoft. Then there's Metaframe, so that once you've paid your Windows Terminal Server licensing costs, then you can get back to the UNIX/Linux world, at about $5,959 for the entry level license. What's wrong with just giving it X server software and giving us the option of not even buying the WTS license in the first place? Bend over; this won't hurt a bit.
The Linux model will also be designed for users who desire a product without the "taint" of Microsoft.
You should know that this is the "Texan" usage of the word taint.
Example: "Bubba, can you come here and fix my Windows terminal? 'Taint workin' no more."
disclaimer: I'm from Texas. I can make these jokes.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Now that compaq has announced its thin clients, I begin to wonder what people will do with them. Are thin clients that remote productivity solution of the future, or just a junk solution that will technically obsolete just after they hit the market?
-- Moondog
Since USB is a standard part of Yellow Dog and LinuxPPC one would think somebody could port it to ix86 machines....
What's the estimated cost for one of these?
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
Thin client ? Isn't history repeating it self ? I thought thin client proved to be a failure 2 years ago. Why should it work now ?. Linux is ment to be used on a workstation not a thin client. IMHO. Stable USB code would be nice though.
I wouldn't get too excited. I work at Compaq's ZKO facility in Nashua, NH, where most of the work is done on Tru64 Unix. I have a close friend who was using a USB keyboard and mouse on his Tru64 Unix 5.0 system, but stopped because he found it to be... uh, a bit lacking. Doubled keystrokes and such. The USB driver gal is just down the hall; I hope she's busy coding...
That said, I have no idea about USB in Linux.
Then it's not a sexy thin client, but an "old stodgy X terminal" and we can't have old buzzords, now can we? :)
I'm from Texas too, and I know that a lot of Linux users and /.'s have had bad experiences with Compaq; me too.
I do think Compaq is making efforts to support Linux better and I know that they will take a lead in developing Linux on their Alpha and Intel platforms, but yesterday's post about their new Alpha compiler has me worried.
I see them falling right back into their previous trap with SCO and other Unices. The funny thing is that the developers and hackers in Compaq are strong advocates of OSS. They work for a company that simply doesn't understand the model.
I've written them many times about drivers for SCSI cards, tech. spec's for video, IDE, etc. and come up with nothing. I garuntee you they'll support Linux well, but I don't see them contributing to the community in a generous fashion. Thank goodness for GPL.
Are any /.'s also Compaq kin? I'd appreciate knowing a little more about the internals of Compaq's Linux gear-up. Please help us help Compaq! Their servers really do scream.
Spoze that's all I got swurth sayin fer now.
They're probably just using the standard USB support already in the later 2.2 kernels... I can't imagine them developing something proprietary on the side and not even releasing it.
Wyse has had a thin client running linux for a couple of months now. I have been testing it for about a month. It looks pretty good, but, and I swear this is true, I have had to reboot it when setting it up as many times as thin clients running WinCE. It also doesn't remember the time unless you point it to an internet time server.
But you've got to remember that there's a little division of Compaq from Maynard, Massachusetts. Ever hear of Digital Equipment Corp.? Ever hear of a The Man They Called maddog ?
Of course, one only need to look at Compaq's stock performance to see that DEC has, ahem, infected Compaq's culture. I would hope that Linux, seemingly the last refuge of the desperate in corporate circles, might be able to help them recover a little glory.
And yes, they are expected to continue to give back to the community as well.
Bravery, Kindness, Clarity, Honesty, Compassion, Generosity
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
I sincerely believe that Thin Clients are the way of the future, especially for businesses. That said, it seems that people are forgetting a couple of things when they impliment them these days...
WinCE, while in and of itself isn't a horrible thing for Thin Clients, depends on Window NT TS, which is one incredibly nasty hack. Personally, I would shoot anyone suggesting we use a NT TS solution.
Linux is great for Thin Clients. Hopefully, the Compaq clients above are well-designed (basically, you should have a sophisticated X-Terminal). The thing here that Compaq and other thin-client makers need to pound on hard is: APPS, APPS, APPS. Being able to run StarOffice is a godsend, but they need to provide alot more to make a Thin Client truly useful.
With the backing of Compaq, I see this as a good thing for thin-clients. Hopefully, we will see alot more software developers produce X-based apps for the community at large.
-Erik
There are always four sides to every story: your side, their side, the truth, and what really happened.
he works where I work and he is more than willing to write USB drivers for any devices he is provided with. He has done a lot of work getting the USB code stable and in good maintainable shape. He has written drivers for USB printers, Zip drives, Web CAMs, Speakers and Modems. Look in the kernel source for 2.3.x for his e-mail and send suggestions.
Compaq has now introduced an exciting new USB peripheral for the Linux version of their thin client computer.
Known as "APOBET" (A Piece Of Black Electrical Tape) it will be applied to both USB ports on their new thin client system, to enhance the appearance of the machine and enhance usability (by preventing user confusion).
The APOBET will also be available as an Upgrade Kit for Compaq customers moving to Linux from the Windows platform. A company spokesperson has been quoted as saying that the APOBET is also being tested for use as a retrofit for machines running Linux across the whole line of Comapq computers.
A Linux spokesperson was quoted as responding that "This fulfills the need for a robust, timely USB solution on the Linux operating system. In addition, it yet again proves that with Linux stability always comes first."
Why did they do this? Is the PCMCIA socket stuff cheaper? It's hard to imagine that it would be, since there are all those commodity SCSI cards and intregrated-SCSI motherboards on the market. Does anyone have any ideas? Or is this just an unqualified mistake?
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
...on my iMac running NetBSD and LinuxPPC (depends on the day and what I'm a-doing as to which gets booted)
;-)
Get with the program, x86 folks
I think he was refering to unix as created "by programmers for programmers" this is obviously not true of the MacOS.
Okay, i am gonna get flamed for saying this, but BeOS R4.5 does USB pretty well....Say, does anyone else think Be would work kinda well as a thin client OS? 1: Little foot print. 2: Stable 3: Boots up quick... 4: doesn't need a great chip all we need is StarOffice or something...
If you want working USB drivers you might want to try NetBSD.
With PC prices below $500.00, why you just set up a Linux box that boots off a server. My old school, West Chester University did this to their old, slow, Sparc Classics. They all run off of either a Linux box or bigger Sun Solaris box. They run great now. Its even better than an X Terminal; it gives you the best of both worlds.
-- soldack
...I 'Taint from Texas, and I still make Texan jokes...
I have been surprised how little coverage it has gotten. It seems to be a VNC type box. It virtualizes the screen, sound, microphone and 4 USB ports (only supports keyboards and mice at the moment) back to a centralized server. It looks very slick with the smart card based access (you can just use a user id/password if you want.) It really makes all these other 'thin' clients look really chunky.
The server side software is priced between 250 and 2,500. It is of course a Solaris only thing at the moment. You can get to your Win applications thru a Citrix client running on the Solaris server.
If they can expand the USB support beyond the keyboard mice you would have a very slick system. I would assume that they are planning on this as the device has 4 USB ports.
Not a future I want to see.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
This sounds like a game console with usb. Anyway, i think that the only thin clients in homes will be consoles with a few more features that hook to the tv or to a monitor.
Um, no. Their job is to increase shareholder value, which is not necessarily the same thing. It could be that becoming part of the Linux/Open Source/GNU/GmOne movement will mean increased long term profits, even at the expense of short term profits.
Companies are supposed to be fairly long-sighted entities. If they're not, it's bad news.
[ReidNews]
What would people recommend that Compaq could do to support these fine people at linux-usb.org in their efforts? I'll suggest it!
In a way, just building a cheap thin-client machine with the 2 USB ports and offering a Linux solution creates synergies. If you build it, they will come...
...um, why bother with a Linux client if you are dependent on an NT server... hardly the way to avoid the "taint of microsoft!" (or to provide reasonable stability...)
Maybe the second generation will be a little more thoroughly though out...
>...I 'Taint from Texas, and I still make Texan jokes...
:)
That's obvious, it just don't sound right.
A better word wouldn've been "ain'".
--from West Tejas (Texas).
I remember a long time ago when computers were extremely expensive things. They designed computers with software meant to be mult-user because it was the only way one could make computing efficient. The way one would communicate and interact with the computer was through a node or a `terminal'. These often got called _dumb_ terminals, because they were essentially a screen, a keyboard and some kind of interface to the computer system. It so showed that these systems were extremely efficient and stable, because all the effort of making it stable was put on the back end. The risk of a monitor getting a hickup wasn't all that great. In fact, in many places these kinds of computing scenarios are still in place and far from being exchanged.
Then came the PC from IBM. The PC was the breakthrough because it was cheap and reasonably efficient. Now each employee could have their own computer. Since most data was processed through linefeed printing rather than databases, this was a good thing. People liked having `their own' computer. They could finally keep their data to themselves. Microsoft tried to mimic the file and directory structure of the Unix filesystem (UFS), but failed immensely.
Ever since, the PC has been just that. A _personal_ computer. Each person has one. This becomes expensive since each person makes a claim of a computer for at least $1200. Calculate that with a 100 people and that is well over a million bucks. Then you still need a server to all of the sudden _SHARE_ data. This is of course a salutation because most organizations today make use of databases and printer sharing, but still. Computing is still computing. Wheather people today like pretty mouse cursors and colorful buttons, better than a green and black monitor. Actually, even I can understand that... Now Sun and many other companies have solved this by using X-terminals. A screen with a little box with rendering capabilities. The thought here is once again to move all processing to the backend, thus making the need for a desktop computer less important. It is also better for upgrades because your X-terminal doesn't go out of style. We still use X-terminals from 1989 and they work great. Wanna speed up things? Upgrade _ONE_ server.
But as soon as Microsoft announces something (not entirely) new, the TERMINAL Server version of NT, this gets out of hand. Let me tell people that this has been around for ages. No longer can we remind people that Microsoft is using old and thought-through technologies, but lets name them _thin-clients_. A thin client is still a PC. With a slightly smaller demand for hardware, but still has a CPU, a VGA board, a possible sound card, a harddrive and memory. IT IS STILL A PC! A cheaper one perhaps, but still. Moving semaphores and most of the computation to the backend is merely a fallback to the old and tested way of doing it.
Enough about history, and to the point. What is Compaq's goal with this? Are they making a Linux version just for the hell of it, or are they in fact going to do some work on it? Are they looking to integrate the Windows CE version with the NT Terminal Server and the Linux version with their AlphaServers on Tru64? As far as i understand, if this is supposed to be called a thin client in the sense of it being a `terminal', it must be integrated with some other product for the backend...
Sincerely,
Alexander
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
ooooh, mail-bombs. you're scaring me...
It's always nice to see that Linux is at the forefront of the latest technologies. For instance, last time I checked the Linux USB home page the development team consisted of a single Spanish college student.
Aim high.