[ale] Using OS X as a thin client

[Jeff Hubbs]

You ought to be able to Gentoo up that eMac as is; that being the case, 
you should be able to thin-client it to your Linux distro of choice for 
an app server.

John Wells wrote:
> I made the serious, grave mistake of paying $1300 for a miserably crappy eMac about 2 years ago. We've had problems with it since we bought it...in particular monitor whine which lasted for the first year or so (and which Apple refused to acknowledge as a problem).
>
> It's my wife's computer, and I was suckered into buying it with the promise of it being a great media computer. hah! iPhoto is by far the slowest imaging program I have ever used. It was "ok" when we were taking 3.2 megapixels shots but still noticeably slow. Now we're taking 5 mp shots and it's absolutely unusable.
>
> I should've known better. Apple is crap as a computer company...they make decent music devices, but that's it. And they've pulled the wool over a whole crowd of otherwise intelligent people and made them think OS X and Apple machinery is "it". I beg to differ. 
>
> Ok...I feel a bit better. ANYWAY....we're stuck on OS X 10.3.9 because I refuse to overpay Apple another cent. I'm ready to switch my wife to Ubuntu...she's tried F-Spot and Picasa and loves them. However, I'm not quite ready to buy her another machine (yet).
>
> SO...I have two questions:
>
> 1. Anyone used an Apple machine as a thin client to a Linux box? I know there's X servers for OS X, so it should be possible, but any experiences/words of wisdom would be very much appreciated. Complicating this possible setup is the fact that I run the eMac over an 802.11G connection encrypted with PPTP.
>
> 2. Is there any way to hack an eMac to just use the monitor and built in speakers, yet plug up to another machine? I have another machine I could sneak in under the desk...I just don't want to buy her a sexy monitor right now if I can help it. For all its uselessness, the eMac at least looks decent (likely where $800 of my investment went).
>
> I appreciate any insight you can provide.
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