[ale] Good think clients to use for house automation/kids/tv

[Jim Kinney]

Never underestimate the usefullness of being able to bolt the brains to the
back of the display.

http://www.norhtec.com/products/mcsr/index.html

The cpu is not very powerful but the graphics supports offloaded video
decompression.

Plus these:
http://www.logicsupply.com/categories/mainboards/pico_itx

with tech data here:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives/spearhead/pico-itx/

Be sure to look at devices using the VX700 graphics:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/v-series/vx700/index.jsp

The link at the bottom of the page leads to linux drivers here:
http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action

however, I'm pretty convinced it's in the mainstream X packaging and kernel
now.

On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 8:33 AM, William Fragakis <william at fragakis.com>wrote:

> oops, bad link for the msi. That's a dual core. A single core will do
> just fine. Newegg seems out of them at the moment. Dual cores will do if
> you need to run the apps locally (on the client not the server) for some
> reason.
>
> regards,
> William
>
> On Fri, 2010-06-25 at 02:07 -0400, jrtroberts wrote:
> > I am working with a friend of mine to slowly get his house setup for
> > home automation.  He is trying to get his house setup as a demo house
> > for home automation packages, an entrepreneurial business he owns.  He
> > is not the most tech savvy guy I have ever met, but he has some money
> > and a strong desire to make this work.  I was hoping that someone at ALE
> > has had some experience with thin clients and home automation with linux.
> >
> > He has two daughters in grade school and would like them to have thin
> > clients in their rooms.  He would also like to have streaming video to
> > his TV's and possibly some other thin clients for things such as
> > security management, lighting control, sprinkler control, and anything
> > else he can roll into the home automation package.  I am aware that he
> > may not need thin clients for all of this, but I would still like to
> > understand my options.
> >
> > His primary system is an Ubuntu 9.10x64 desktop system.  Because issues
> > with the mobo and 10.04 we cannot upgrade until drivers and other issues
> > are figured out on the linux side.  It is a core2 quad with 8 gigs of
> > ram, 2 gig nics, and plenty of storage capacity.  I am hoping that
> > setting up roaming user accounts and terminal services is a fairly
> > straight forward task.  Whether it is or not, I could use some input on
> > this subject as well.
> >
> > The more important issue is pricing or building the thin clients.  Is
> > there a good company to look into when buying thin clients for this type
> > of environment.  I am very inexperienced with this type of hardware and
> > generally inexperienced with linux as whole.  Any help would be greatly
> > appreciated.
> >
> > Thanks for your time.
> >
> > Joshua Roberts
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>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
Actively in pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness
Doing pretty well on all 3 pursuits

 Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by
faith, then you are conceding that it can’t be taken on its own merits.
   Dan Barker, "Losing Faith in Faith", 1992
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