How to Connect a Thin Client to the Server with Unraid

[Joon628]

Hi. I was planning to build an implementation of Linus's computer systems, the 1 tower 2 person and the 8 people 1 cpu video. 

So I want my computer to be somewhere else in the house and connected to a monitor, being used in the living room, and the second virtualized desktop connected to a thin client in my room with wireless HDMI dongle that Linus showed off in his video. However I have no idea how to set this up, except for the part where I create a virtualized pc with Unraid. The problem is getting the virtualized windows to the thin client in my room connected to a monitor. How would you do this? Would you use Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol? or something else in the unraid server system?

 

Please help! 

[jnvqc]

Don't bother, too expensive and complicated. To keep things simple, if you want remote access to a computer use team viewer, if they are in the same network and you want to game use steam in-home streaming. And the HDMI dongle in the video is not a wireless transmitter it's something else entirely, basically a virtual monitor so he didn't have to plug monitors to every video card (as steam in-home streaming requiries).

[Joon628]

@jnvqc Ohhh I get it about the HDMI dongle... But what did Linus do to connect the thin clients and the server?

I mean I am using only 2 monitors so price is not a problem...

[brwainer]

3 hours ago, Joon628 said:

@jnvqc Ohhh I get it about the HDMI dongle... But what did Linus do to connect the thin clients and the server?

I mean I am using only 2 monitors so price is not a problem...

Linus was using Steam In Home Streaming AFAIK - i'd have to rewatch the videos to be sure. The limitation with Steam is that not all of your key commands get passed through, and swapping to the desktop can be a flakey experience. I know one workaround people use is to add Notepad as a game in steam and stream that, which gives you the whole desktop.

 

Nvidia Game Stream is a better solution for the whole desktop and gaming experience, if you have an Nvidia GPU. There is an open source project called Moonlight that can run on almost anything, and connects to the Gamestream server provided by Geforce Experience. My friend uses moonlight extensively in his house and is able to game quite well, using Raspberry Pi 3s as his thin clients. The workaround to stream your whole desktop is to add the kernel as a custom game. There are guides readily available for this if you Google it.

 

True thin client systems either use RDP, which is not good for gaming at all, or require a proprietary software or hardware system at the server end. When I manage to get something like this set up myself, I plan to use a PCIe card and thin client from http://www.teradici.com/ - these guys make the best performing system, designed for video editing/playback and remote 3D modelling work, etc. Because their solution is mostly seperate hardware, the only compromise is how costly it is.

 

TLDR: Try Moonlight/Gamestream out if you have an nvidia GPU, if not try steam. 

[Joon628]

48 minutes ago, brwainer said:

Linus was using Steam In Home Streaming AFAIK - i'd have to rewatch the videos to be sure. The limitation with Steam is that not all of your key commands get passed through, and swapping to the desktop can be a flakey experience. I know one workaround people use is to add Notepad as a game in steam and stream that, which gives you the whole desktop.

 

Nvidia Game Stream is a better solution for the whole desktop and gaming experience, if you have an Nvidia GPU. There is an open source project called Moonlight that can run on almost anything, and connects to the Gamestream server provided by Geforce Experience. My friend uses moonlight extensively in his house and is able to game quite well, using Raspberry Pi 3s as his thin clients. The workaround to stream your whole desktop is to add the kernel as a custom game. There are guides readily available for this if you Google it.

 

True thin client systems either use RDP, which is not good for gaming at all, or require a proprietary software or hardware system at the server end. When I manage to get something like this set up myself, I plan to use a PCIe card and thin client from http://www.teradici.com/ - these guys make the best performing system, designed for video editing/playback and remote 3D modelling work, etc. Because their solution is mostly seperate hardware, the only compromise is how costly it is.

 

TLDR: Try Moonlight/Gamestream out if you have an nvidia GPU, if not try steam. 

Wow. Thank you for such a detailed response. 

So do you mean that it would not be possible for me to just.. stream a normal computer in my thin client?

 

I am completely new to networking so I have no idea about what I am talking about. Please bear with me. 

 

Basically, It would be not possible for me to.. have my pc in the living room and my monitor and peripherals in my bedroom with no wires, right?

 

Would there be any OTHER way rather than using thin clients to achieve this goal?

 

Thank you so much for your response again. 

[brwainer]

It depends on what type of thin client you have. If it's custom built to connect to a Citrix server, for example, then it would be hard to use it in a different manner. Most thin client terminals are limited in the protocols they can communicate with, and are also proprietary.

 

A thin client is just a device that does the bare minimum processing to send your inputs to a remote computer and display the image and audio that is returned. In the example of my friend's house, he is basically using a Raspberry Pi as a thin client, with the streaming being dome by moonlight/gamestream

[Joon628]

@brwainer Hmm.. this is quite hard to get the grasp of. 

Thanks for your response!

[Alternative 311]

Sorry to rehash this thread... But Say I Setup UnRaid in a workstation. Then what protocols does UnRaid use? ex. HP t610 Thin Client, it has Citrix, RDP, and VMWare, Possible a couple others. So say I use one VM on UnRaid just to stream movies locally to the thin? Transcoding happens on the server, not the client. My Idea is the thins only purpose is to stream items from the server, for my son, and all his Cartoon Series and Movies.