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010111 · Dec 1, 2003, 05:18 PM

basically just that... i have 30 or so machines and i would like a terminal only machine...

i was thinking of using a red hat box... but its too noisy... and still has to live on the KVM.

so what i want is an old dumb terminal... like a green-screen DEC from the way-back-days... will that work for multiple machines?

i mean... which dumb terminals have enough 'smarts' to let me go 'ssh user@10.0.0.1' and have it connect? do any of the old ones even do ssh?

what about newer 'thin clients'? like the WYSE ones... or even the IBM NetVista ones? do any thin clients also GUI X Window connection? a lot of the thin clients seem to be good choices... i am just wondering what anyone else is using... if anybody...

thanks!

Arkham_c · Dec 1, 2003, 08:20 PM

Originally posted by 010111:
i mean... which dumb terminals have enough 'smarts' to let me go 'ssh user@10.0.0.1' and have it connect? do any of the old ones even do ssh?

what about newer 'thin clients'? like the WYSE ones... or even the IBM NetVista ones? do any thin clients also GUI X Window connection? a lot of the thin clients seem to be good choices... i am just wondering what anyone else is using... if anybody...

thanks!

A terminal is just that. It connects to a UNIX box over a serial port. It has no smart in it whatsoever besides interpreting screen control characters (terminal emulation). It has no processor to speak of, and has no tools like telnet. Those tools reside on the host to which the terminal is connected.

A thin client might work. I'm not particulary familiar with them, but you'll have better luck there than with a DEC terminal.

Another thought is a very low-end PC (486 era) running one of the floppy-disk-based Linux distributions. You could get telnet and SSH and it would essentially be the terminal you are looking for. It would also be basically free since the machines are worthless otherwise.

010111 · Dec 1, 2003, 09:09 PM

Originally posted by Arkham_c:
A terminal is just that. It connects to a UNIX box over a serial port. It has no smart in it whatsoever besides interpreting screen control characters (terminal emulation). It has no processor to speak of, and has no tools like telnet. Those tools reside on the host to which the terminal is connected.

A thin client might work. I'm not particulary familiar with them, but you'll have better luck there than with a DEC terminal.

Another thought is a very low-end PC (486 era) running one of the floppy-disk-based Linux distributions. You could get telnet and SSH and it would essentially be the terminal you are looking for. It would also be basically free since the machines are worthless otherwise.

i was seeing some newer terminals that *did* have basic telnet support built-in to them though. couldn't find any with ssh as they probably predated its use over telnet. they weren't the cool green screen DEC ones... but they were CRTs and a keyboard with ethernet on back.

i'm thinking thin client is the way to go though. i'm just curious what they do if they never find a network OS... seeing as i am pretty sure they expect to see a MS server to tell them what to do...

Scarpa · Dec 2, 2003, 11:09 AM

I've worked with Wyse thin clients, unfortunately the Windows flavors. I really don't like that company.

But I suppose if you are just going to use ssh you could get their low-end linux offering. Compaq makes thin clients also. Both are pretty cheap, much cheaper than a PC and quieter too since they have no moving parts, no fan, no HD, etc.

Scarpa · Dec 2, 2003, 11:20 AM

Originally posted by 010111:
i'm thinking thin client is the way to go though. i'm just curious what they do if they never find a network OS... seeing as i am pretty sure they expect to see a MS server to tell them what to do...

The thin clients I've worked with run WindowsNT Embedded which basically means they stripped a bunch of junk out. It's essentially just NT. The newer ones have XP Embedded which is a tiny bit nicer. Both flavors will run on their own and you can install a limited amount of applications locally. At my work they have a local web browser (IE), terminal emulator and RDP client. Between those three apps people can connect to our big iron, intranet and windows app servers.

Those are the "high end" offerings though. There are linux based ones that are used for telnet/ssh/Xwindows sessions which would be a better fit in this case.

010111 · Dec 2, 2003, 05:45 PM

Originally posted by Scarpa:
The thin clients I've worked with run WindowsNT Embedded which basically means they stripped a bunch of junk out. It's essentially just NT. The newer ones have XP Embedded which is a tiny bit nicer. Both flavors will run on their own and you can install a limited amount of applications locally. At my work they have a local web browser (IE), terminal emulator and RDP client. Between those three apps people can connect to our big iron, intranet and windows app servers.

Those are the "high end" offerings though. There are linux based ones that are used for telnet/ssh/Xwindows sessions which would be a better fit in this case.

do you know any model # on the ones you use or the linux ones with ssh/xwindows?

thanks!

Scarpa · Dec 2, 2003, 06:21 PM

You know I looked on their site after posting that and couldn't find any linux based ones. I know they have made them in the past though. I would just call them up and ask sales. Compaq also makes thin clients, I would go there first personally.