SunRay 3, use as Thin Client? Feasible or pointless?

Soadyheid · 03-11-2024, 08:03 AM

@business_kid

Quote:

You won't be able to give kids the PC experience, or even play games with each other.

I think you've missed the point. We're not trying to give kids PC experience or have them play games. We're trying to give them facilities to gain education via a stand alone non internet connected resource.

As a charity we're trying to repurpose old IT kit which has been donated free, (We've got about 2,000 brand new unused SunRays as I've mentioned previously)so if there's some way we can build a little network of say, 10, of them plus a laptop using open source software we've, as they say here in Scotland, "Won a watch!"

If you know of someone who'd like to donate 2,000 Raspberry Pis we'd be delighted to accept them. (They work particularly well with Internet-in-a-Box software!) Their use is something we are looking into though.

We're mainly old (grumpy) retired volunteers, so trying to find out if something like this is possible is probably good for stimulating a brain which otherwise might start to fall into a state of disrepair and decrepitude.

As per the title of the post, is it feasible or pointless? Looking increasingly like the latter but I don't think I've exhausted all the possibilities yet.

Thanks again for your comments.

Play Bonny!

business_kid · 03-11-2024, 12:10 PM

To me, the issue would be memory. Can't you have any local memory cache?

Well, the bottleneck I'm looking at is network. With 1Gb ethernet, you'd have a total memory bandwidth (for the class) of ≅100MB/S. That's painful. I bought two "usb-3.0" drives, which behave like slow usb-2.0 drives. hdparm -t reports 101.5MB/S. Firefox, etc. won't run in any sensible way from a live usb on them. Click on firefox - it does nothing ... nothing ... nothing ... then it unfolds. But you can't click on anything for perhaps another minute. I couldn't log into LQ because I think it got events in the wrong order.

Now divide that by 10 for a class of 10 all clicking together

.

beachboy2 · 03-11-2024, 02:28 PM

Soadyheid,

I think the Internet-in-a-box idea is truly brilliant.
https://internet-in-a-box.org/

IIAB hardware:
https://wiki.iiab.io/go/FAQ#What_har...hould_I_use%3F

Any Raspberry Pi (used or new) donors out there?

For anybody interested in thin clients have a look here:

https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/

business_kid · 03-11-2024, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by beachboy2

https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/

I read that.

It took me back to the days of CP/M "Mini-Computers" which ran small companies over here (1970s/early 1980s). I was there and working. You'd arrive at a 'trade counter' and order your part. The store man would know or look up your part, and enter a one line stock query. A minute or two later he would get back: "No Stock," or a quantity in stock and bin number. And you couldn't get anything out on Thursday morning while the wages went through. But the whole company ran on that Z80. If you got bigger, you needed a couple of mini-computers or blow a million on an IBM...

Now those things had 4Mhz Z80s (≤1Mhz instructions) You plainly have more poke than that; so IF THE KIDS WOULD BE SATISFIED WITH CONSOLE INPUT, you could do stuff. You could teach programming, use nano or the like. I don't think you could provide X for more than a couple. But if you could link one X session onto one monitor, you could keep the monitors on the server and have up to 4 X sessions. IN THEORY, linux ought to be able to do this stuff. In practise, it's an awful big ask. Any of your grumpy old farts know Linux?

Are there grants available? If you teach a computer syllabus, or something?

Soadyheid · 03-12-2024, 06:04 AM

I've started at the other end of the "feasibility study" and loaded up Internet-in-a-Box on an old HP Elitebook 725 G3 using the one line install:

Quote:

curl iiab.io/install.txt | bash

no sudo required! I'm using an empty laptop which I've installed Mint 21.1 on. I was surprised how easy the install went though I had to go through a couple of tidy up iterations using the command

Quote:

sudo iiab

Setting the browser to http://box was enough to bring up the home page with the admin page at hhtp://box/admin. (You set up an admin account during installation.) There's a lot of stuff to take in and huge amounts of content you can download including maps, maths and language courses but I particularly liked the "ifixit" stuff which shows you how to service loads of different devices ranging from phones, tablets, desktops, laptops, etc. Just the sort of info that a mobile service guy might need to carry about. Need to diagnose some disease in the middle of the Sahara? There are loads of medical information also.

Very impressed!

I was able to connect my mobile phone to the server after setting the WiFi up as a hot spot but the SunRay stuff is still eluding me.
I installed jOpenRay which gives you a nice little window to set up your SunRays but unfortunately when I power up the client which is connected (as is the laptop server) via my router, it picks up an IP address but doesn't register in jOpenRay. That's as far as I've got so far.

Thanks for the interest!

Hmmm... We've also got shedloads of Wyse 5070 thin clients which you can stick Kubuntu on, Maybe they'd be better for the Internet-in-a-Box project. Must check with the Boss!

Keep using the SunRays as pallet packing fillers!

Play Bonny!

business_kid · 03-12-2024, 07:01 AM

The CP/M stuff ran using 80x25 monitors and keyboard, referred to as a 'dumb terminal.' These fed into RS-232 serial ports. They came in several types, probably so sellers could force another set of terminal on whoever bought a pc.

Are you sure there's no way to add ram?

If you can stick Kubuntu on your Wyse thin clients, go that way. They sound much less antique. They'll have some ram. And I'd advise AntiX for size reasons

Of course, all today's kids would want to do is post on social media......

beachboy2 · 03-12-2024, 09:24 AM

Soadyheid,

For the benefit of those who may be interested, could you let us know the procedure for installing Kubuntu/Ubuntu or Debian/antiX or Linux Mint etc on a Wyse 5070?

Thanks.

Dell Wyse 5070:
https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/5070/

Certified on Ubuntu:
https://ubuntu.com/certified/201711-25935

https://ubuntu.com/certified/201711-25935/20.04%20LTS

The two below both use the Intel Pentium Silver J5005 @ 1.50GHz, rated by CPU Benchmark at 3088.

Dell Wyse 5070 Intel Pentium Silver J5005 CPU @ 1.50GHz 4GB RAM, 16GB SSD with PSU:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/176156925...Bk9SR7yt-6bGYw

Dell Wyse 5070 N11D Thin Client Pentium Silver J5005 8GB RAM, 32GB SSD With PSU:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315176362...Bk9SR7yP5K_GYw

Soadyheid · 03-12-2024, 01:12 PM

@beach_boy2

Quote:

For the benefit of those who may be interested, could you let us know the procedure for installing Kubuntu/Ubuntu or Debian/antiX or Linux Mint etc on a Wyse 5070?

Ahhh.... There's the problem. I don't have access to how to install Kubuntu just now as the workshop is shut for a week or so. We had a very clever young lad volunteer who set up a bootable USB stick which automagically installed Kubuntu on the internal 16Gb eMMc flash memory using Clonezilla. I'd have to check exactly what he did to make it. His "Beta" version instructions related to the Clonezilla set up, the final version you just booted the stick. I'll check when I can. We'd limit the memory to 4Gb; one 4Gb SODIMM or 2 2Gb ones.

@buisiness_kid

Quote:

Are you sure there's no way to add ram?

Check out this, er..., SunRay strip down video, round about 8:49.

Like I said earlier in the thread, it's a sealed box, nothing inside to work with.

Play Bonny!

beachboy2 · 03-12-2024, 02:22 PM

Soadyheid,

I tried installing IIAB on an old laptop and all seemed well until I got the failed message below.

I used the "sudo iiab" command but to no avail.

I am not too bothered, but maybe you can see what went wrong from this:

Code:

TASK [0-init : Set /etc/hostname by running: hostnamectl set-hostname "box"] ***********************
fatal: [127.0.0.1]: FAILED! => {"changed": true, "cmd": ["hostnamectl", "set-hostname", "box"], "delta": "0:00:00.014681", "end": "2024-03-12 19:06:11.510701", "msg": "non-zero return code", "rc": 1, "start": "2024-03-12 19:06:11.496020", "stderr": "System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate.\nFailed to connect to bus: Host is down", "stderr_lines": ["System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate.", "Failed to connect to bus: Host is down"], "stdout": "", "stdout_lines": []}

PLAY RECAP *****************************************************************************************
127.0.0.1                  : ok=18   changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=1    skipped=3    rescued=0    ignored=0

Soadyheid · 03-12-2024, 05:29 PM

Beachboy2

Sorry, I'm learning just as you are. I ended up running "sudo iiab" a few times and eventually it all went through ending with a Header "Internet in a Box (IIAB) Software install is complete" plus a screen full of info which it told me to photograph before hitting enter to reboot

It failed a few times, I even reinstalled everything to a new nVME drive a couple of times before succeeding.

Possibly a problem with the downloading?

Play Bonny!

beachboy2 · 03-12-2024, 05:44 PM

Soadyheid,

No problem.

Soadyheid · 03-22-2024, 06:20 AM

OK, here's the update. I reckon using the SunRays is a no go. Back with the Wyse 5070s... Trying to use the SunRays was the main brief, the Boss had already got the whole Internet-in-a-Box server/client thing up and running with the Wyse thin clients.

As mentioned, our whiz kid had built a bootable Clonzilla USB pen which did the install automagically, however, I've built one manually using a Kubuntu live distro on a USB pen and it works fine.

For those who want to know, you need to reset everything to default plus the BIOS password as below:

Quote:

Boot the Wyse while holding down the F12 key
Select "Bios Setup" under "Other Options"
Select "Unlock" at the bottom of the screen and enter the password Fireport.
Go to Security - Admin Password in the tree menu.
Enter Fireport into the old password field leaving the other fields blank and select "OK"
Select "Restore Settings" at the bottom of the screen then BIOS Defaults - OK - OK
Select "Exit" in the bottom right.

With your live distro plugged in, hold F12 while the box reboots, select the USB device and boot Kubuntu. Once running, click install Kubuntu and use the whole of the internal 16Gb eMMc drive as per normal.
You could fit more than 4Gb memory plus an M2.eSATA drive if you wanted but, hey, this is a thin client.

Thanks for all your help, hope the above is of some use to someone.

Play Bonny!