Mythbuntu is AWESOME with thin clients. [Archive]

computoman

02-01-2009, 02:03 AM

We just added a Mythbuntu (aka MythTV) server to our network at home. Yes server, because we have added thin clients that work just like the server for watching and listening to media. Just like you might use a ps3 or xbox 360. you can even use the thin clients as a real computer so the kids can do their homework or even play games. If you are a parent, here comes the fun part. now you do not have to have both a tv, game computer, regular computer and whatever else in a childs room. Money and space saver. The most important part is that use of the thin clients can be controlled by the server. You can control when the TV is used!!! like when homework is done or when the kids should be asleep. You could even disable all access if you wanted to. You can easily control websites that can be visited (i.e. myspace twiitter and whatever) and have a record of all sites at your fingertips that have been visited. Since everything is stored on the server, you have access to everything including the kids local email and personal files. You can even snoop in on what they are doing without ever going into the child's area. Hopefully you will not need to do that. Since you are using thin clients, they are a fraction of the cost of full computers. Another money saver. My daughter is grown, so she (or was it me that) missed all the fun.

$350 cost of PS3
$200 cost of refurbised Xbox360
$50 Cost of refurbished thin client.
"What's in your wallet?"

computoman

02-26-2009, 05:35 PM

Before I get into thin clients, my method requires a server and the thin clients i use are dumb. if you wanted to get a unit to do as you say, these units will not cut the mustard. Especially if you want to hd streaming. You need one of the smaller footprint computers to do the job right. Dell has some as does HP I think. They will not be for sale at fifty dollars yet. I as will mention later i expect to see specialized media/computer thin clients in the near future. In any case you could use a mythtv back end server in a closet somewhere and then use something like an atom based box or small computer based thin clients for mythtv frontends to do what you want. There are already boxes to use as media only thin clients on the market varying from 150 dollars or more but you can not use them as a computer.

Thin clients are an interesting subject. You can go three ways.

The first way is to take an old i586 or better based computer without a hard disk (with sound blaster compatible card and decent video card) and set it to pxeboot (via nic card to the network) or etherboot (via floppy, cd or usb stick to the network). You also can take old newworld diskless blue imacs/macs and add them as thin clients using netboot, but extra setup has to be done on the server to use that old ppc architecture. I used macs for a while but let them go to reduce the different kinds of computer architecture to support. The old machines were my first diskless clients.

The second way is to use real thin clients. There are a multitude of thin clients and you have to be careful on what you get. I have used HP compaq t30's/20's. Ebay sells a lot of thin clients, but usually the real cheap ones can be a nightmare in that sometimes internal parts such as the firmware may not be included. It took me six units to make four good ones, but I still came out ahead. The other issue is that you need to have a thin client that is i586 or better compatible and can pxeboot.The more memory and speed the better. There are a lot of thin clients that are not compatible. I know i bought an old sunray one thin client for five bucks and sun cpu based. It was usuable but not for the purpose I intended it for. Read carefully on specs. I would avoid any thin clients that do not come with a power supply. To me the safest best for getting equipment is to go to a local reseller of refurbished equipment and get ready to horsetrade if you can. Most major cities have them. The only down side is you usually have to use the keyboard as channel changer (true with all the thin clients without an adapter and remote). A lot of people use wireless keyboards to make things easier.

The third way is to to have any thin client that has an up to date internet browser and interact with the server via mythweb. I have not really looked to see which ones are the best for this. Also you may have to add a few packages if you want to serve out openoffice and the like. Wince based thin clients usually have the least memory, but not always. nt based thin clients have memory but the browser is not up to date. windowsxp based thin clients might be the best bet. There are linux based thin clients most of them are not inexpensive unless you get lucky. In any case go with a name brand that will be around to support it. I have two neoware thin clients where hp bought the company and now support is slim. Hp also bought Compaq, but there is some support for existing units without possibility of upgrade.

With the advent of the ARM architecture cpus there could be some interesting possibilities in thin clients. Nvidia is planning to make their own x86 compatible cpu for units to be used for media thin clients and the like. Now that I have said all that, I would wait. There will probably be some competition in that area hopefully between all the cpu manufacturers. Motherboards are just beginning to support hdmi.

If I had to do it all over again, I would get a atom based cpu, mama board, memory, power supply and build my own case. You could do this for under one hundred dollars and be better than most any new thin client at that price on the market today. I am told that Dell sells new thin clients in that range but do not advertise it. You could always boot most but not all thin clients with a usb stick or throw in a notebook hard drive for space saving if you wanted to for a local os. You can also get ide to flash adapters also. They are getting harder to come by with the advent of sata. The big thing now is sata to solid state drives (ssd) but they are not inexpensive and still need improvement.

Sorry for the dissertation, but I wanted to get most of the bases covered.