So.. I got this Thin Client

[Mareczek99]

Hey,

Just got my hands on a discarded Dell Thin Client sporting a dual core AMD 1.4 ghz, 4 Gigs of RAM and some Radeon HD6250 and 16GB of flash memory.

Any advice what should I use it for?

Anyone tried turning this into a small desktop or smart tv, emulator/in house streaming box?

I have both a not too shaby but old gaming PC equipped with an i5 2500k, 16GB DDR3 and a GTX 980 Ti 6GB and a handy 2in1 Asus T100HA with 4GB of RAM and 64 emmc.. so.. i'm thinking of some tinkering fun project as I pretty much don't need the Thin client for anything really. Been thinking of hooking it up to my TV for ...whatever reason as I have a full load of old consoles from 32bit to Wii so I don't really need emulators really..

Any ideas?

[Radium_Angel]

5 minutes ago, Mareczek99 said:

Any ideas?

Well the first step would be to see if you can add local storage to it, and the next step would be to get into the BIOS to see if it even sees said storage and can boot to anything other than the NIC.

[Guest]

Inb4 everyone says Linux 

[Via Lactea]

In addition to Radium_Angel's comment:

 

I work in a college where we had to discard hundreds of thin clients as the processor they had meant they could only be used as a thin client.

Check to see if it can be used as anything else first.

[CodeAsm]

On 2/16/2019 at 3:03 PM, Via Lactea said:

In addition to Radium_Angel's comment:

 

I work in a college where we had to discard hundreds of thin clients as the processor they had meant they could only be used as a thin client.

Check to see if it can be used as anything else first.

You mean it isnt too powerfull? because if you can add any local storage or am fine with setting up a DHCP server that redirects to a ftp server or nfs, any cpu can be made to run almost any os and application.

What you probably mean to say is, that thinclients commonly have very cheap but working cpu in them for terminal like applications, start word, browse the net, and store the information on a local network only.

look into netboot if you cant fit a local storage device. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBoot)

But I think these thinclients come with either SATA (for laptop sized harddisks, they commonly dont provide any or enough power for a full sized desktop hdd (can be hacked tho)) IDE (older models) or CF card. I have a couple that have the older laptop ide (pata?) connector with a "SSD" card, 5gig windows xp embedded.

Ideas: Network printer/scanner (connect the non-networked devices on this thinclient) or a NAS (using its usb ports)
a save internet station for the mom or grandparrents.
Home automation, add some weather reporting devices arround the house and make em report to your thinclient wich will host your private website with charts and meters (maybe a nice older monitor).
maybe a combo of some of these ideas. Playstation2 modded can load games of a network storage, maybe load some games on a hdd and let your thinclient host these games, maybe your wii can even load stuff of the "samba" server.

anyway, experiment.

[p360991]

1)Make a mediaPC from it

2)Turn it into a nas

3)Use it as a web server

4)Install linux and use it as a normal computer(even some light gaming......maybe)

5)Home automation(similar to a web server)

6)Turn it into a kitchen pc(ok this is a joke im out of ideas )

[Underfire17]

I'd seriously think about making it a private nas. You can always get a PI to be your emulator/streaming box. Also since the system is meant for network-based environments that should mean that it is optimized for that stuff (File storage/access, network speed, and reliability).

I mean in the end it's up to you, but in my opinion, it would be a better idea to go with that.