Is there a RDC OS

[Kimpton]

Heya,


I'm looking for turning some of my old PC's into client machines. I have quite a power set of PC's and lot of <mod edit> one., I wondered if such an OS existed, where all it can do is RDC to windows (and mac, but that doesn't matter) machines; nothing more.

I would have thought a linux variation might exist, but I struggle to find one.

So yeah, and OS I can install on some of these old machines to RDC to my other computers.

Thanks
-Kimpton

 

[Eximo]

Not 100% sure what it is you are asking for.

Why do you want multiple 'client' machines and what do you mean by client. What will these clients be used for? Do you want them to boot without drives off of your main system? PXE boot? That would be rather inconvenient to your main system to have to keep delivering OS to the clients as they are rebooted.

Or do you just want an OS on them? If so, Linux certainly offers the most versatility as you can find a build for darn near anything. They wouldn't then be clients, but full fledged machines on their own. You could still get an RDP client to connect to Windows, but that will really just let one user at a time access your main system remotely.

 

[Kimpton]

Not 100% sure what it is you are asking for.

Why do you want multiple 'client' machines and what do you mean by client. What will these clients be used for? Do you want them to boot without drives off of your main system? PXE boot? That would be rather inconvenient to your main system to have to keep delivering OS to the clients as they are rebooted.

Or do you just want an OS on them? If so, Linux certainly offers the most versatility as you can find a build for darn near anything. They wouldn't then be clients, but full fledged machines on their own. You could still get an RDP client to connect to Windows, but that will really just let one user at a time access your main system remotely.

Basically I have a pretty powerful server that I run multiple OS's on that do certain tasks. I just want these old PC's to be able to RDC to the VM's: thats all. IDM how I do this, I just want to make use of these old machines: I'd rather not stick a copy of windows in them i.e thinPC because thats more than I want. All the os should do is boot and offer the person to RDC to a local machine,

Hope this helps

 

[Eximo]

So you want thin clients for connecting to VMs. Simplest method is still Linux. RDP is a standard protocol. I'm sure you can find a simple Linux with a watered down GUI in which you can control the desktop to automatically launch an RDP client to connect to the Windows machine.

I doubt you will find a step by step anywhere. You just need to start researching the individual pieces you want to do.

1) Simple Linux OS for kiosks
2) Automatically launch an application after login (or automatically log in and launch application on boot)
3) Linux RDP client with session save features (to capture the hostname of the VM you are connecting to)

That should do it.

I can't think of any bootable RDP client, but you might be able to find one.

 

[Alabalcho]

What you are looking for was the mantra ten year ago - "thin client computing", where lot of companies produced bare-bones terminal (in fact, PCs) with sole reason to RDP into Windows / Citrix terminal server.

You can install RDP client like Remmina on any modern Linux distro. Just find the right distro for your old PCs. You can even venture into ChromeOS territory, there is pretty awesome RDP client here as well.

 

[Eximo]

Hadn't thought of Chrome OS that would be the way to go these days.

Yeah our company tried the Citrix thing for a while. That didn't go well.

 

[skittle]

Easy to do, many ways.

http://www.freerdp.com/
http://www.ltsp.org/

You could configure any dsitrobution, debian for example, to boot straight into a full screen FreeRDP session.

We use ltsp for 1000+ clients in our computer lab at university. Works very well:
http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2vom7s/for_several_schools_i_support_the_year_of_the/

 

[Kimpton]

Thanks for all your help! Many different sources I see !!