ThinCast by Acute Network Technologies

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: ThinCast by Acute Network Technologies
started by: green

Posted by green on Mar. 28 2006,15:59

I want to run a thin client, but I seem to either be missing the concept or missing the proper hardware.

I picked up two thin client boxes.

Acute Network Technologies:
ThinCast 5000
ThinCast 1000
They both have 128Mb RAM
the 5000 is a 200Mhz Geode
the 1000 is a 50Hhz Geode

They do not have CF slots, CD, Floppy's.
One has USB ports, but the BIOS does not say it can boot USB, and I've tried using USB-HDD and USB-ZIP DSL versions.

I am kinda at a loss on what to do with them. The 5000 has a small WinCE browser and gets a DHCP IP and can surf the net, but the browser is old and sucks. The 1000 boots, but that's about it.

What do I need to do to get them to boot and suck down a config or something across the network?

I have googled and googled on these two specific boxen and really have not found much of anything. All the other stuff I have read regarding Linux thin clients, are boxes that have HD's, CD's, floppy's, CF's, etc. Basically old PC's. The ones I have are not old PC's, they are designed as thin clients.

Anyone have thoughts? Please? Pretty please?

Posted by dare2dreamer on Mar. 28 2006,16:56

I recently put something similar together, although admittedly with less specialized hardware.

My girlfriend had been using a combination of her aging laptop and my desktop for some time now, and she wanted a desktop of her own again. We had a spare monitor, just no machine and little desire on part of the in-house admin (me) to maintain another box.

So, I went junk shopping for a thin client. I managed to score a HP e-vectra for around forty bucks at a local computer sale. It's basically a zero legacy pc with a celeron 500 in it. About the size of a small phone book and reasonably quiet for something older than my cat and technically being a full-blown pc.

It's seriously overkill as terminals go, but hey...fourty bucks. You could easily use one (perhaps with a memory upgrade) as a complete desktop in a pinch.

In any case, I frugal installed DSL, added the handy NXclient extension (with nopasswd and noexit so it acted like a kiosk) and viola...another "Desktop" in the house. Well, Xterminal, but I'm hardly going to split hairs with the now-happy girlfriend.

The now-happy in-house admin thinks its a perfect solution because babysitting this hardware consists of nothing more than occassional dusting, and he got to keep something "old and busted" out of a landfill.

As a side benefit, we technically have a safe "guest" pc now. I just kill off the nxclient and let them use the local applications.

I'd really recommend looking into a similar solution, perhaps with CF instead of a hard drive. You'll end up with no moving parts (save the cpu fan in the evectra's case) and far less headaches because you won't spend as much time trying to get these diskless monsters to boot.

Thinclients are wonderful for corporate environments where you have entire armies of identical units with good support, but for smaller rooms a hybrid approach is often a simpler way to go.

Posted by doobit on Mar. 28 2006,17:33

Where do the Thincast boxes store the Windows CE? Some of the CE based thin clients actually have a small CF disk on the motherboard for this. It would be easy to swap it out for a frugal installed DSL CF.

Posted by green on Mar. 28 2006,22:03

These ThinCast boxes have 8Mb of some kind of storage on them. The chip looks like a ROM chip, similar to modern BIOS chips on my PC's. If it had a CF, I would definitely swap it out or write over it.
These things only cost me $5 a piece, so no large investment. I thought they would be fun to play with, but it's turning into more of a headache than anything else.

I have a couple of machines that are 200Mhz PC's. They run DSL just fine, but, I thought a thin client would be a good project. I am rethinking that decision..... but have not given up. I'm good for smashing my head into a wall until the bone fragments start coming loose and get scattered about.