Thin Client Recommendation

[brueggma1]

Greetings,

Is anyone familiar with the used market (ebay) thin clients? I'd like an in-expense thin client that can be used to connect to a remote Lin/Win VM on a @ home ESXi machine.

Ideally the hardware client has Wifi capability and can use WinRM to connect to a Windows machines and supports VNC and/or X11 to connect to a remote Linux box. I'm familiar with DHCP/PXE, but it would be nice if the thin client had a small embedded (linux) O/S that didn't require PXE/tftpd

I'm interested in any solution that fits the bill and is under $200? I don't have any existing hardware to repurpose.

Purpose: keyboard and monitor for an 8yr old to connect to a back-end Windows machine that will be re-imaged often (when she breaks it).

 

[Kawiguy454]

we are disposing of piles of WYSE terminals at work. Dell has purchased the WYSE platform so newer ones are marked Dell. The D50 or newer is not bad with basic Linux OS wifi capable and bullitproof for most part.

Unless you really like fiddling with old tech I would suggest you spend the $ get a cheap PC and make an backup image of the boot disk and give it to the kid. Imaging software like Acronis and some free ones are out there and can restore the system to new in just minutes from network drive or USB.

 

[mk378]

In the $150 to $200 range you can buy a decent new mini-PC.

 

[JustinH]

Originally Posted by mk378
In the $150 to $200 range you can buy a decent new mini-PC.


OP advised he has an ESXI host, and is running RDP sessions to a VM on that host.

Used Wyse Clients are dime a dozen. They have little flash drives in them usually 64gb. You can load almost any OS on them, and there is probably a stripped down version of linux that you can load with a USB key.

I have imaged these things both ways, PXE or USB.

Are you doing VDI or just doing RDP sessions to a VM?

 

[brueggma1]

Thank you everyone for the suggestions,

I think I'm going to pick up one of these Raspberry PI 4 kits from Amazon ($100) and try to use it.. It should keep me busy during this forced stay at home period.