LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Bryan Wetton <bryanw@box.net.au>
  To  : linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
  Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 13:37:56 +1030

RE: Thin clients

Amazing -was just thinking about this before I logged on.

If I have a Linux server I presume a 'thin client' able to display X windows
apps would be

a Linux box with a 'minimal' system ?
a Win 9x box with something as a client ?
Ditto WINNT ?

How would the above be actually implemented?


Regards
Bryan Wetton
Adelaide SA
http://www.box.net.au/~bryanw/
'A Southerner from the North'

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Newton [mailto:newton@atdot.dotat.org]
Sent: Saturday, 5 February 2000 12:09 PM
To: Stephen Donaldson
Cc: linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au
Subject: Re: Thin clinets


On Sat, Feb 05, 2000 at 11:27:20AM +1030, Stephen Donaldson wrote:

 > Not a specific technical question but one I hope someone with more
 > networking experience may help clarify.
 > It relates to the buzz phrase going around: "thin clients",  I get the
 > drift of cut down PC's and stuff but could someone explain the software
 > side of how this works, i.e. is the software fully delivered from the
 > server when the client boots up etc.
 > I know its fuzzy but an overview of how well linux performs this role
 > would be helpful and interesting.

"Thin Client" is a phrase the PC industry has just woken up to in the
last twelve months or so.  UNIX has been doing the same thing for about
a decade, except we call them "X-Terminals", and, occasionally, "Diskless
Workstations."  Before the days of graphics we used to call them
"VT100's" and "Teletypes," but I suppose that thought has escaped most
people :-)

Essentially, the idea is that most or all of the application runs on a
server somewhere, and the display component interacts with the user via
hardware which is more or less a graphical dumb terminal (for some
reason people start calling terminals "smart" when they can display
graphics, though, so perhaps that terminology isn't quite right).

The MS implementation of this is particularly spastic, because NT has
never been a multiuser operating system, but the application servers
which feed the thin clients absolutely require good multiuser support.

The thin client concept is, I suppose, a bit more complicated than I've
made it out to be above;  Vendors like Sun have widened the definition
to include JavaStations, which do a fair bit of application processing
locally.  But the JavaStation has never really taken off, so we can
almost discount that definition and return to the dumb-terminal idea.
Nevertheless, the ideal "thin client" is probably a system which
understands how to run a Java virtual machine, ActiveX controls,
X-windows and the protocol that MS uses for Windows Terminal Server
Edition, 'cos then you'd be able to run UNIX, Java and MS apps on
one desktop.  MS hates this idea, because if you have that kind of
environment you don't have to give a rat's arse about whether or not
you're running Windows, which is why their NT Terminal Server licensing
is so awful.

 > Would a program such Star Office be suitable for such an environment.

Apparently so, although I haven't seen it running in that mode.  Shortly
before the Sun buyout, StarDivision was talking about how StarOffice
was shortly going to be available as an application-server system,
suitable for JavaStations, PC thin clients, and anything else that can
run Java.  Given Sun's Java bent, I can't imagine them cancelling
development on that little project, so let's just wait and see...

Even the current edition of StarOffice is thin-client-aware, though:
*ALL* X-windows software is, because X-windows is a system for sending
graphics over the network to remote terminals.  If your thin client
happens to be an X-terminal, StarOffice works fine.

    - mark

--------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried an internal modem,                    newton@atdot.dotat.org
     but it hurt when I walked.                          Mark Newton
----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax: +61-8-82231777 -----

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