Thin client solutions.

Some thin client solutions verbage about the product.

Thin client solutions acually have two parts. You have the server that does all the heavy lifting,.then you have the workstations for users commonly known as thin clients.  One of the best ways to cut infrastucture costs is at the user’s desktop. Here is a collection of thin client solutions you can try to achieve that goal.  Two of them are made especially for cloning machines and at least one is just the client side. All of these soultions should be free or have free versions in addtion to the commercial versions!!!Note: There are a lot more solutions than this, but these are the ones Ihave seen.

Open thin client.

OpenThinClient is a Free Open Source ThinClient Solution consisting of a Linux based operating system along with a comprehensive Java based management GUI and server component. It is intended for environments where a medium to large number of Thin Clients must be supported and managed efficiently. Offering flexibility unheard of in the world of proprietary Thin Client Solutions, openThinClient empowers developers and integrators to create advanced Thin Client solutions… for free.
openThinClient is released as an open source software under the GNU General Public License (GPL) v2, and it is available for download free of charge.
openThinClient was created by the levigo group based on their thin client expertise reaching back till 1999.
Learn more about openThinClient and what it can do, or just proceed to the download section.

Why openThinClient

openThinClient has three main features, distinguishing it from most of the other thin client solutions:

• The difference with the greatest impact is its server centralistic approach that minimises administrative work. The thin client only needs a PXE-capable network interface and no local storage i.e. flash or hard disk. All configuration data is held within a LDAP database that comes with the openThinClient Server or an MS-Active Directory.
• The openThinClient Manager and the openThinClient Server are written in Java so they will run on any OS that is supported by Sun Java 6.
• And best of all, you get a complete open source thin client solution free of charge.

Learn more about the openthinclient philosophy? and how it can fit your company’s needs.

Thin Clients & Security/Safety

In a traditional PC environment there are many opportunities to steal unprotected data or to install unwanted data via USB-stick, CD or DVD. Effective control of this, is nearly impossible to achieve. Data is often stored on client PCs, which makes the situation even worse.
Server Based Computing offers substantial advantages, not only regarding possible attacks from the outside or theft of data. It has great potential in data safety and availability as well.
It doesn’t take much effort, compared to decentral organised PC networks with spreaded server locations, to build an efficient data storage and a highly available and fail proof (redundant) infrastructure.

Thin Clients & Green IT

With the ongoing debate about climate change, the question how to save energy has been brought to the centre of attention in the IT-world right now. The Fraunhofer instituteUMSICHT has compared the energy and resource consumption of PC and Thin Client infrastructures in a recent study.
In doing so they considered the whole product life cycle, including the production, operation and recycling phases. The conclusion was, that Thin Clients weigh about 70% less than normal PCs even if the server is included and take about 80% less transportation volume.
The production of Thin Clients itself needs less resources and energy than the production of normal PCs. The devices offer substantial advantages in production and logistics.
During normal use, Thin Clients only need half of the energy a normal PC would and in doing so they are not only economically but also ecologically a good alternative to avoid CO₂ emissions and electronic waste.

The openThinClient product family

The openThinClient product family offers a powerful, universal solution for the Thin Client Computing needs of a wide range of organizations. In its open source version the software – consisting of the openthinclient Manager, the openthinclient OS and the openthinclient Server – is freely available. It may be used, customized and extended to your needs.

Hardware & Support

If you are looking for Thin Client Hardware or need support for your Thin Client environment, you may take a look at openthinclient the business edition of openThinClient.

More information at: http://openthinclient.org/

LTSP

The Linux Terminal Server Project adds thin client support to Linux servers. LTSP is a flexible, cost effective solution that is empowering schools, businesses, and organizations all over the world to easily install and deploy thin clients.

New thin clients and legacy PCs alike can be used to browse the web, send e-mail, create documents, and run other desktop applications.

LTSP not only improves Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), but more importantly, provides increased value over traditional computing solutions.

LTSP workstations can run applications from Linux and Windows servers. Linux based thin clients have proven to be extremely reliable because tampering and viruses are virtually non-existent.

Key Benefits of LTSP

An LTSP thin client environment brings many benefits to an organization. Here are five reasons why you should choose LTSP:

1. Reduced Costs

In an LTSP thin client environment, all software for workstations originates on the LTSP server. Whether you are repurposing old desktop PCs or deploying new thin client devices, LTSP can be a key component in reducing the costs related to your computing environment.

2. No Licensing Fees

LTSP is open source software, released under the GPLv2 License. There is no cost to download and use LTSP. Benefitting from LTSP? Consider contributing to the project.

3. Less Maintenance Required

LTSP allows you to maintain your entire computer network from a single point of control; from the operating system image on the thin clients through user authentication and file storage. By reducing your software footprint with LTSP, maintenance and support obligations are reduced when compared to traditional desktop PC computing solutions.

4. Secure

Security has become a key challenge for administrators. LTSP thin client connections can be secured via SSH and are restricted to a LAN, ensuring that you are operating a manageable and safe computing environment. The LTSP model also makes it increasingly challenging for your systems to be a victim of viruses and spyware.

5. Community

The LTSP community has been active since 1999. Fueled by participation and experimentation, LTSP users have deployed LTSP in every imaginable scenario possible; from running an irrigation system to offering their company a thin client computing solution to replace desktop PCs. However you choose to LTSP, contributing back to the community is sure to improve your experience.

For more information see: ltsp.org

Note: We use ltsp and have used it since version 4.x (http://www.instructables.com/id/Thin-client-environment/). LTSP was probably one of the earliest free open source thin client solutions around.

2X

Today’s biggest challenges for IT infrastructures are to improve security and lower energy usage, all while reducing infrastructure costs – all of which can be accomplished via server-based computing.
2X Software is a global leader in virtual desktop and application delivery, remote access and corporate mobility. Thousands of enterprises worldwide trust in the reliability and scalability of 2X products. Cloud computing is shifting from a competitive advantage to an operational necessity. 2X offers a range of solutions to make the leap to cloud computing simple and affordable.The company’s product line includes the award winning 2X ApplicationServer XG providing platform independent virtual desktop, application delivery and integrated thin client management from a single software package; 2XOS for converting desktops PCs into thin clients and the 2X Client RDP/Remote Desktop for remote access to Windows virtual desktops & applications available for Android, iOS, BlackBerry and more.2X Software are the first company to offer integrated thin client management for virtual desktop & application delivery with the 2X ClientManager module for 2X ApplicationServer XG and also the first to develop a Facebook Client App for secure access to Windows applications and desktops, transforming Facebook into a powerful business tool.2X is a privately held company, with offices in the USA, Germany, UK, Australia, Japan and Malta. Its management team is backed by many years of experience in developing and selling network infrastructure software. 2X holds a Microsoft Gold Competency certification, and partners with IBM, Novell, VMware and others.Notable 2X customers include Fox News, Harvard University, H&B Foods, McKesson, Advance Auto Parts, Mazda and more. Click here to see a full customer list, selected testimonials from satisfied 2X administrators and recent 2X product awards.2X is part of a group of software companies including Acunetix, a developer of web application security scanning software, and 3CX, a developer of Windows-based IP PBX software.
Note: they do have free versions of the software, but it is mostly a commercial platform.For more information see: www.2x.com

Thinsoft.

ThinSoft Pte Ltd is a leading global developer and distributor of Thin Computing Solutions (TCS) that reduces The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of IT operations. ThinSoft commenced business in September 1996 and since 1998, the company has been involved in the research, development and sales & marketing of TCS.The company’s three flagship software product series are BeTwin, WinConnect and WinConnect Server which allow users to access and run popular applications on the world’s predominant operating systems Windows and Linux.Note: they do have free versions of the software, but it is mostly a commercial platform.

For more information see: http://www.thinsoftinc.com/

FreeNx

NX technology is a computer program that handles remote X Window Systemconnections, and attempts to greatly improve on the performance of the native X display protocol to the point that it can be usable over a slow link such as a dial-up modem. It wraps remote connections in SSH sessions for encryption.

It is developed by Gian Filippo Pinzari at the Italian software company NoMachine. The NX scheme was derived from that of DXPC – the Differential X Protocol Compressor project.^[1]

NX software is currently available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Solaris. NoMachine has clients available for Windows and Mac OS X, and Google makes a freely available Open Source GPL2 version of the server called Neatx.

NX techology was made famouse for the fact that they could deliver high speed access over low speed phone lines.

For more information see: http://freenx.berlios.de/

Clonezilla

What is Clonezilla?

Clonezilla is a partition and disk imaging/cloning program similar to True Image® orNorton Ghost®. It helps you to do system deployment, bare metal backup and recovery. Two types of Clonezilla are available, Clonezilla live and Clonezilla SE (server edition). Clonezilla live is suitable for single machine backup and restore. While Clonezilla SE is for massive deployment, it can clone many (40 plus!) computers simultaneously. Clonezilla saves and restores only used blocks in the harddisk. This increases the clone efficiency. At the NCHC’s Classroom C, Clonezilla SE was used to clone 41 computers simultaneously. It took only about 10 minutes to clone a 5.6 GBytes system image to all 41 computers via multicasting!

Features:

• Free (GPL) Software.
• Filesystem supported: (1) ext2, ext3, ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, btrfs of GNU/Linux, (2) FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS of MS Windows, (3) HFS+ of Mac OS, (4) UFS of FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, (5) minix of Minix, and (6) VMFS3 andVMFS5 of VMWare ESX. Therefore you can clone GNU/Linux, MS windows, Intel-based Mac OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Minix and VMWare ESX, no matter it’s 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x86-64) OS. For these file systems, only used blocks in partition are saved and restored. For unsupported file system, sector-to-sector copy is done by dd in Clonezilla.
• LVM2 (LVM version 1 is not) under GNU/Linux is supported.
• Boot loader, including grub (version 1 and version 2) and syslinux, could be reinstalled.
• Unattended mode is supported. Almost all steps can be done via commands and options. You can also use a lot of boot parameters to customize your own imaging and cloning.
• One image restoring to multiple local devices is supported.
• Multicast is supported in Clonezilla SE, which is suitable for massively clone. You can also remotely use it to save or restore a bunch of computers if PXE and Wake-on-LAN are supported in your clients.
• The image file can be on local disk, ssh server, samba server, or NFS server.
• Based on Partclone (default), Partimage (optional), ntfsclone (optional), or dd to image or clone a partition. However, Clonezilla, containing some other programs, can save and restore not only partitions, but also a whole disk.
• By using another free software drbl-winroll, which is also developed by us, the hostname, group, and SID of cloned MS windows machine can be automatically changed.

Minimum System Requirements for Clonezilla live:

• X86 or x86-64 processor
• 196 MB of system memory (RAM)
• Boot device, e.g. CD/DVD Drive, USB port, PXE, or hard drive

Limitations:

• The destination partition must be equal or larger than the source one.
• Differential/incremental backup is not implemented yet.
• Online imaging/cloning is not implemented yet. The partition to be imaged or cloned has to be unmounted.
• Software RAID/fake RAID/firmware RAID is not supported by default. It can be done manually only.
• Due to the image format limitation, the image can not be explored or mounted. You can _NOT_ recovery single file from the image. However, you still have workaround to make it, read this.
• Recovery Clonezilla live with multiple CDs or DVDs is not implemented yet. Now all the files have to be in one CD or DVD if you choose to create the recovery iso file.

License:

• Clonezilla itself is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 2. However, to run Clonezilla, a lot of free and open source software, e.g. the Linux kernel, a mininal GNU/Linux OS, are required.

Note: Generally you will not need to clone pure thin clients, but you will need to clone the servers or the storage devices they support. Where you can not use thin lcients, Clonezilla is an excellent solution.

For more informaiton see: http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-SE/

Fog project.

What is FOG?

FOG is a Linux-based, free and open source computer imaging solution for Windows XP, Vista and 7 that ties together a few open-source tools with a php-based web interface. FOG doesn’t use any boot disks, or CDs; everything is done via TFTP and PXE. Also with fog many drivers are built into the kernel, so you don’t really need to worry about drivers (unless there isn’t a linux kernel driver for it). FOG also supports putting an image that came from a computer with a 80GB partition onto a machine with a 40GB hard drive as long as the data is less than 40GB.

Fog also includes a graphical Windows service that is used to change the hostname of the PC, restart the computer if a task is created for it, and auto import hosts into the FOG database. The service also installs printers, and does simple snap-ins.

FOG System Overview

This is a very basic overview of how FOG works. The FOG server, by default, provides DHCP, NFS, PXE, FTP, HTTPD, and WOL services to the clients on the network. All computers on the network should have PXE boot as their first boot device, then as is shown by client 1, FOG will chose if the machine should boot the FOG image, or to the local hard disk. Client 2 in the diagram is pushing an image to the server and storing it using NFS, where it could later be pushed down to other computers. The manager is the machine that controls all the tasks of the FOG server. The manager can be any web enabled device from an IPod touch with Safari to a XP desktop top running IE.

What OS does FOG run on?

FOG can run on nearly any Linux distribution, but the installer we have written runs on Fedora 7+ and Ubuntu?

FOG is good for anyone running Windows XP, Vista and 7.  FOG is currently being used by many schools and small businesses who can’t afford the licensing of commercial products.

What makes FOG different?

* FOG is easy for end user. The end user no longer needs to worry about NIC drivers to image a computer, this is all handled by the kernel. FOG management is done via an easy to use web GUI.

* FOG is centralized. Most of tasks done on FOG don’t require the user to visit the client PC. For example if you imaging a computer all you need to do is start the task. After the task is started WOL will turn the computer on if it is off, PXE will load the OS, DHCP will give it an IP address, FOG will tell the server it is in progess, and PartImage will image your computer. Then when imaging is done FOG will tell PXE not to boot the machine to the fog image and your computer boots up. After the computer is booted, if the FOG service is installed, FOG will change the computer’s hostname and that computer is ready to use!

* FOG is easy to access. All you need is a web browser to image a computer, no client software required. We have heard of organizations using FOG who image computers from an iPOD touch or iPhone.

* FOG is Powerful. With features like virus scanning, memory testing, disk wiping, testdisk, and file recovery, FOG does more than just imaging.

* FOG can grow with you. The FOG server can be broken down and run across multiple machines. For example, your NFS, apache, PXE, and DHCP services can all run on different servers to maximize performance.

* FOG is community driven. Is a feature missing in FOG that you would really love to see? If so, let us know and we will do our best to include it in FOG.

* FOG is well documented. The FOG WIKI contains a user guide which is over 50 pages long!

* FOG is free. Whether you have 2 computers or 20,000 computers in your organization, FOG is free!

For more information see: http://www.fogproject.org/

DRBL

About DRBL

DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot in Linux) is free software, open source solution to managing the deployment of the GNU/Linux operating system across many clients. Imagine the time required to install GNU/Linux on 40, 30, or even 10 client machines individually! DRBL allows for the configuration all of your client computers by installing just one server (remember, not just any virtual private server) machine.

DRBL provides a diskless or systemless environment for client machines. It works on Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS and SuSE. DRBL uses distributed hardware resources and makes it possible for clients to fully access local hardware. It also includesClonezilla, a partitioning and disk cloning utility similar to True Image® or Norton Ghost®.

The features of DRBL:

• Peacefully coexists with other OS
• Simply install DRBL on a single server and all your clients are taken care of
• Save on hardware, budget, and maintenance fees

Peacefully coexists with other OS

DRBL uses PXE/etherboot, NFS, and NIS to provide services to client machines so that it is not necessary to install GNU/Linux on the client hard drives individually. Once the server is ready to be a DRBL server, the client machines can boot via PXE/etherboot (diskless). “DRBL” does NOT touch the client hard drives, therefore, other operating systems (e.g. MS Windows) installed on the client machines will be unaffected. This could be useful in, for example, during a phased deployment of GNU/Linux where users still want to have the option of booting to Windows and running some applications only available on MS windows. DRBL allows great flexibility in the deployment of GNU/Linux.
Note: Clonezilla is based off thid technology. You actually can run thin clients much like LTSP either gui or text based ( aka command line) with DRBL (WeI found the transferspeed on doing backups two to three times faster than a MSWindows eenvironment file copy.

For more information see: http://drbl.sourceforge.net/

XRDP

xrdp

xrdp: An open source remote desktop protocol(rdp) server.

Written by Jay Sorg

Monday, 07 September 2009 05:13

Based on the work of FreeRDP and rdesktop, xrdp uses the remote desktop protocol to present a GUI to the user.The goal of this project is to provide a fully functional Linux terminal server, capable of accepting connections from rdesktop, freerdp, and Microsoft’s own terminal server / remote desktop clients.Unlike Windows NT/2000/2003/2008/2012 server, xrdp will not display a Windows desktop but an X window desktop to the user.Xrdp uses Xvnc or X11rdp to manage the X session. To learn about how xrdp currently works, click here and here.For questions or comments please mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view itThis project is released under the GNU Public License (GPL) for versions 0.7.0 and older.All future versions will be released under the Apache 2.0 Licese.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 18 December 2012 20:00

Note: WE use XRDP also. Great setup for letting touchpads with rdp clients or old MSWindows based thin clients access a server

For more information see: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xrdp/

Thinstuff.

Thinstuff s.r.o. is a young company specialized in software development and research in the Server Based Computing (SBC) and Desktop Virtualisation (VDI) market.

Our mission is to offer revolutionary software solutions and extend access to any SBC or VDI backend by Citrix like features and beyond such as TSX Multimedia (Multimedia acceleration), TSX USB (USB redirection), TSX Gateway (RDP over https), TSX Remote Programs (Seamless access to remote applications), TSX Web Access (Web portal for remote application access), etc.

This is accomplished by using the de-facto standard Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) enabling access to modern SBC and VDI backends through any existing RDP client.

Our current product range is focussed on Windows based Terminal Services software solutions for small to enterprise-sized companies (XP/VS Terminal Server).

Founded in April 2005 with its headquarters in Bratislava Slovakia Thinstuff is a privately held company with sales offices in Austria and Germany as well as a development team in Austria.

Our team is backed by more then 10 years of experience in the Server Based Computing, Client Consolidation and Virtualization market.

Among our customers there are companies like REWE (Austria) and other large companies throughout Europe and US

Note: Have used some of theiry client side solutions, but never any of the server solutions yet.

For more information see: http://www.thinstuff.com

Freerdp

FreeRDP: A Remote Desktop Protocol Implementation

FreeRDP is a free implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), released under the Apache license. Enjoy the freedom of using your software wherever you want, the way you want it, in a world where interoperability can finally liberate your computing experience.

Note: Freerdo is mostly a client side solution.

For more information see: http://www.freerdp.com/