Nekochan Net

Hello there, SAQ, and thanks by answering!

...I should state first that I was able to watch some first gen Sun Ray client when it was the newest thing from Sun (and if I'm not wrong, a lot before the Sun - Oracle merge) and that was -indeed- inside the office from the official distributor here in my city. Sadly I never realized that, years after such meeting, such thing could be useful for me!

When I mentioned the price differences (i.e.: U$D50.- Vs. U$D150.- and so on) I was not trying to put such thing as a limit at all, even if I would prefer something relatively cheap.

Right now some of my PC boxes pass most part of the time in a shutdown state because less and less use was discovered for them after the latest house/office moving.

So, yes... in fact my first thought was to use some kind of portable WLAN setup... something like an almost-diskless workstation with just the necessary to get running Wi-Fi and the minimum required daemons to run a remote desktop... and then, thanks to Google, noticed the link above... but as some of you noticed first, does not looks so great after some detailed review.

You know, all what I want is my session following me around this not-too-big building... and I don't want to go to the global cloud at all because right now I fail to see the benefits. So, to put it short, we are talking about some brand-new (and more powerful) PeeCee to determine, one/two average-power desktop PeeCees already at use, the good and old Octane, a couple (and not too special) NetBooks, and one/two Tablets (AINOVO NOVO7 or something like that) ...everything integrated into some nice and homogeneous WLAN, sharing same apps, same data vault, and same customizations... to begin my session from any of them! Am I asking too much?

The trick is, of course, to get only the master PeeCee acting as server all the time, using the rest only on demand and depending on needs from particular time...

...having said that, I can buy a Sun Ray 100 for cheap but with some considerable shipping&handling charges right now in my country... how good is that? Has the "Type 6 USB Keyboard" anything weird at all (i.e.: Sun's propietary firmware, altered protocol, etc.) or is it just a common keyboard/mouse set?

Thanks in advance.
All the best,
Diego

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Oh!, let me write that!


Octane / Dual Head

http://twitter.com/GeekTronixShop

I have a Sun Type 6 USB keyboard connected to my MacBook's BookEndz dock. Works fine, the volume/mute keys work, and the "diamond" key between the spacebar and Alt works as the Command or "splat" key.

I also have a Sun Type 5 connected to a Lightwave Communications USB converter, from there to an IOGEAR dual DVI KVM switch. To my surprise I noticed yesterday that the dedicated Copy/Paste keys work as labeled under Fedora...

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Then? ... Now? +MLA ... Other: DEC Sun, DG AViiON, NeXT

Hello there, SMJ!
...good to know because one never knows when something like that (Sun Ray stuff, you know) enters to the sweet spot for an eventual purchase... anyway, after some P.M. chat with PymbleSoftware, it seems the Sun Ray 100 is slightly outdated for my requirements.

So, it seems I'll need to make some time to try the software route to desktop virtualization, adding all the required shared resources, etc... I can setup here some PC box in exclusive for those trials, then nothing is lost. I'll try first vía Ethernet, and then if everything goes well I'll try with wireless adding some portable devices as terminals.

Anyway, I'm sure it will take a lot more time that I could imagine right now, but with a bit of luck and effort it will work as intended, so... I guess it is the real way to go for now.

But thinking it loud, I think somebody should develop something to do it automagically; this time not thru USB but thru WLAN!

You know, even if it can be done combining some hardware / software resources yourself, it should be possible to do it a lot more easily... you know, something like a big *.zip file including all the required *.deb files that one can buy and then install vía 'apt-get' to get the machine automatically converted into a "replicant"!

_________________
Oh!, let me write that!


Octane / Dual Head

http://twitter.com/GeekTronixShop

Very tiny update, I know, anyway it will be the first kick into this subject: today purchased some new wireless connectivity stuff, and did some interesting tests along the rainy day that prevented me to go out and work with wood stuff. I'm pretty happy with the performance, considering I did not spend a lot of money.

So, everything is there... now I just need figure how to get the desktop-session side running as intended!

Cheers!
Diego

_________________
Oh!, let me write that!


Octane / Dual Head

http://twitter.com/GeekTronixShop

So, while I'm here, I just want to say: it worked!

Yes, it seems (at least for now) RDP/VNC was the way to go for me. After some pretty humble investment in some wireless connectivity stuff, external non-volatile storage, and a couple keyboard/mouse sets, it is already working for me... but I don't use it as much as I thought I'd work with it. But, when I need it, it is very comfortable to work into my every day desktop session using a light netbook.

So, thanks to all the ones that pointed me into the right direction.

But now is time to jump to the next level... how to get more refresh-speed?

I don't mean more WAN (Internet) speed but more LAN (Wireless) speed keeping the same hardware stuff, or adding some new bits... maybe adding more PCI network cards to the server-like PeeCee to increase bandwidth and saturate the router/switch? But then... never tried to configure more than one network card (i.e. Ethernet) to work in parallel to duplicate the effective bandwidth... is it feasible at all?

Oh well, keep it mind that I don't want to throw too much cash into it, so, clever-minimalistic alternatives are welcome. I know one solution would be to link the server-like PeeCee to the router/switch stuff via Gigabit Ethernet, but I'd want avoid to change all my Fast Ethernet stuff if it is possible... so, I'd prefer anything else.

What do you think?
Have a good night.
Diego

_________________
Oh!, let me write that!


Octane / Dual Head

http://twitter.com/GeekTronixShop