Gizmo Turns Old PCs Into Linux-Based Thin Clients

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices has published an article about the 'PC Reviver', a small device that replaces hard drives in aging computers with a solid-state flash memory drive that boots an embedded Linux OS. The 'revived' computer can then be used as a thin-client network appliance for Citrix, Windows, Linux, and/or browser-based server-centric computing networks."

I can do that

[Apreche]

Take a Compact Flash card, put it in a very simple converter that allows it to be put directly into an IDE slot sans ribbon cable. Mount it, partition it, format it. Build custom linux system on it, possibly based on knoppix. Put a whole bunch of kernel in there with not a lot of userspace. Use dd to make a bunch more of these things.

The only difference is I don't think compact flash drives are solid state.

Re:I can do that

[Andy Mitchell]

The only difference is I don't think compact flash drives are solid state.

I believe any storage device with no moving parts can be termed solid state. Anyone know for sure?

Re:I can do that

[TeknoHog]

I think he was referring to the fact that not all compact flash cards are without moving parts, like IBM Microdrives.

Microdrives are not flash cards, they are hard drives. Even though they have a CF connector.

Flash refers to 'flash EEPROM' which is different from an ordinary EEPROM in that it can be quickly erased (and possibly read/written too) in blocks instead of single bytes.

But my computer still has moving electrons and photons ;)

Re:I can do that

[venomkid]

Microdrives are not flash cards, they are hard drives. Even though they have a CF connector.

Heh, yeah. I know what the name means. Guess I should have put the "flash" in quotes.

Functionally, they're similar, so I don't really differentiate. When my camera's unloaded, it asks for a CF card and it's satisfied even if I feed it a Microdrive.

I still managed to get modded overrated, though.

*boggle*

Re:I can do that

[MarsDefenseMinister]

Years ago, when radios were built mostly with vacuum tubes, the transistor radios were marvels of technology. They were emblazoned with little words, announcing that the radio you were holding had "16 transistors" or something like that. The implication was that the more transistors, the better. Another way the marketers would emphasize the high-tech nature of the product would be to put the words "Solid State" on the case. To users, that meant that there were no vacuum tubes inside, only transistors. Vacuu

Re:I can do that

[baywulf]

On a CF card, if the OEb pin is tied to ground, the card follows the IDE protocol on powerup. It is just a matter of slight wiring change which is what the converter does. BTW from personal experience you get much better performance using a CF card in USB2.0 bus instead of IDE bus.

I don't get it

[BCoates]

It looks like all this thing does is replace the hard drive. Even if you don't have a drive sitting around with your semi-old computer, they cost less than the $150 this does, and it'll probably work on a weaker system than a pentium with 64MB ram.

Or are you paying for the software on the flash drive, too?

Re:I don't get it

[SpaceLifeForm]

Even cheaper, burn a Knoppix CD.

Re:I don't get it

[Nagus]

Often the hard drive is the most important bottleneck in older machines. I don't know exactly how fast the Flash ROM in this thingy is, but it's surely faster than some random old hard drive.

My guess is that many old machines will be plenty fast enough for use as a terminal (which is the intention of this product) with this bottleneck removed.

Now, if their software is well-done it might well be worth the price, in some situations. If you just replace a hard-drive, you still need to install, configure and

Re:I don't get it

[Looke]

Getting rid of a noisy and unreliable harddrive is a definite plus, as anyone who have heard the noise difference between a classroom full of Win95 computers and the same computers running as Linux thin clients without hard drives will agree.

That said, Linux thin clients (LTSP) can easily boot from a floppy or a PXE network card, without needing expensive, specialized flash drives.

Re:I don't get it

[AJWM]

Maybe so, but a hard drive won't boot up in 15 seconds.

Also, one point of thin clients (which this is designed for) is that you don't have to worry about the users loading a drive with data that needs to be backed up or new software that has to be supported (or interferes with what you are supporting).

Pointless

[Kris_J]

Working sub-4Gig hard drives are not hard to come by. For that matter, Win98 boxen complete with valid licenses are hardly rare. What exactly does this do that someone who understands the concept couldn't put together themselves?

Re:Pointless

[renehollan]

What exactly does this do that someone who understands the concept couldn't put together themselves?

Save them the time to roll a flash-friendly distro?

Re:Pointless

[llefler]

Save them the time to roll a flash-friendly distro?

Exactly. I have several spare 128m CF cards for my camera. I have the IDE adapter that I bought over a year ago. But I never seem to have time to put together the OS to run on it.

Just need to get a minimal config to run rdesktop, xterm, and VNC. But you also need to mount /home to a network drive and move /var either to the network or RAM. Knoppix might be a good start, but it's way too big and would need remastered.

It hasn't been a priority, but it would be nice to have a PC/Terminal with no moving parts. Unfortunately, $150 is too much for a hobby project I really don't need. (just want)

Re:Pointless

[Kris_J]

Aren't there enough distros for this sort of thing already?

Re:Pointless

[renehollan]

Dunno. Maybe. Heck, I used to roll custom embedded Linux distros for in-house use (though, when "embeded" means on the meager 9 Gb SCSI disk, you're pushing the meaning of the word).

I'm sure you could look at LinuxDevices.com and find a distro you could put on that hardware, and then customize it, etc.

Of, for $150 buy the thing all ready configured for you. You decide how much your time is worth.

Not pointless at all

[StillDocked]

The point is that it would make a great tool for offices that have a need for a larger number and are unwilling to have someone spend the time prefabricating them indiviually. It is a question of convienence for me.

That being said, from a convienece point of view, Win98 boxes just don't work in my (our) environment here (antivirus issues, et cetera) and I would be loathe to have any hoisted upon me. We already have embedded Linux thin clients, and if we could convert older machines at $150 per, that woul

Re:Not pointless at all

[Kris_J]

A locked-down 98 box that just runs a Terminal Services or Cytrix client could almost get away without anti-virus protection -- particularly if it contained no user files and just used a standard image that could be swapped in on a new hard drive if a virus did hit it.

Re:Pointless

[Thag]

Working sub-4Gig hard drives are not hard to come by.
In NIB condition? In lots of 50 or more?

They stopped making full-sized drives under 4 gig years ago. You might scrounge a couple, but to be useful for a real business you need a lot more, and worn-out old drives are going to be an immediate maintenance problem.

Bigger newer drives aren't going to be addressable by older BIOS chips.

Jon Acheson

Re:Pointless

[Kris_J]

If you're comparing an old hard drive to an embedded solution, surely you just have a standard image. Keep a set of (cheap, old) imaged hard drives around and if one fails throw it out and replace it.

The advantages?

[polyp2000]

It seems to me that the "advantages" for this thing are its ease of installation. Literally a "Plug'N'Play" linux with a few nifty tools thrown in to make use as a thin-client a little simpler.

I dont think its anything that a reasonably experienced linux user couldnt set up on a usb flash "ala - Mandrake-Move" (cept those older Pentium Class PC's will probably not have USB slots. They seem to be claiming the flash drive has fast boot times. Older 4gb drives might not be comparably quick (although I doubt this there are probably other reasons other than RPM and data-seek times) that make their solution nice and quick.

Now what would be really really nice, is to see something like this using one of those tiny hitachi 4gb numbers....

Nick ...

Not really pointless, but expensive

[jbarr]

To some, this may seem pointless, but if it's truely plug-and-play, it could be a boon for many applications.

At home, I have several "older" computers with Windows installed, and they are pretty much used exclusivly as "Remote Desktop termianls" accessing a "server". Being able to eliminate Windows in favor of a quick-booting system would certainly be welcome. And never having to worry about local configuration, local backups, etc. again would be welcome.

But yes, for $150.00, I could set something up myself, but not everyone is as tech-savvy.

Anyone know of a good "do-it-yourself" alternative?

organisation will 500 low usage PC's

[tod_miller]

These run office, email, and web.

They needs to upgrade them to run the new version of XP.

They see this.

They think, aaah, we can controll everything and make sweeping changes and upgrade in minutes.

*knock knock*

Who's there?

Microsoft!

Microsoft who?

Microsoft who just bought you a jag and a place in a university of your choice for your brat kids.

Oh, you'd better come in then.

A Solution in Search of Problem?

[rueger]

This strikes me as one of those neat solutions that sadly won't find a market.

A few years ago, when a new business class PC would run the better part of two thousand bucks, this would make sense. In today's corporate setting a new PC with Windows licence [dell.com] wouldn't cost significantly more than than the PC Reviver.

If your existing stock of PCs are old enough that this is the only way of making them useful, what other hardware failures are looming?

Damn... $150 for this thing...

[GreenKiwi]

Wow! They want you to spend $150 to revive an old PC? Why not spend $150 more and buy a brand new one. You can pick up a Dell PowerEdge server for $300. And it'll have a 2.4ghz Celeron and a 40gb drive.

Ah well... just doesn't seem worth upgrading the other.

kiwi

price is very high.

[geohump]

Price for the hardware seems high. Just take one of these devices below:
http://purchase.winstation.com/mall/Flash_Disk_Mo d ule_Horizontal.asp http://www.disklessworkstations.com/cgi-bin/web/in fo/fdm.html?id=IUiSsDnP http://www.idotpc.com/TheStore/Desktop/890Spec.asp ?Product.id=890&Cate.id=11
And flash it with LTSP ( http://www.ltsp.org ) and you have the same thing. Plug it into an old PC, and you have an instant thin client which doesn't need to boot over the network. The kernel is embedded a

Re:price is very high.

[itwerx]

Price for the hardware seems high.

Totally agree.
What I'm wondering is if this $150 version is setup to preserve the FLASH? I.e. is there some RAM on board for temp files and the like? Or does it die in a couple years of use because it's been written too many times?
Or does it depend entirely on workstation RAM? (In which case I wonder how much is really needed for decent performance?)
In any case, probably any CD distro would already be setup to not try to write to the boot media so that migh

Re:price is very high.

[FictionPimp]

with newegg selling 85.00 1 gig USB flash drives. I'm about to explore the possiblity.

What's so thin about it

[ClosedSource]

So you take a fat computer that could already handle browser-based apps, replace the hard drive with a new device and add $150. The end result: less functionality at additional cost.

PXES

[Ricdude]

I use the PXES boot cd image for just this purpose. I'm typing this on the PXES PC in the kitchen, which is really an X terminal to the Linux PC in the bedroom. X rules.