Problem: If you have bought a Thin Client Terminal, you lost updates after some years, cause the manufacter closes the support, or you have to pay for the Upgrades.
Solution:
To reuse the old Hardware take a closer look on www.tinycorelinux.com There you find a very small modular Linux. You must not buy new Hardware! Tinycorelinux runs on x86 (Intel/AMD/Via) Hardware with a current 2.6 Kernel inside a RAMDISK.
Preferred Applications:
- Kiosk Internet Box
- Internet Radio
- Netbook with full ThinClient Support for High Security Travel (Company’s)
- Internet PC
- Office PC
- Fast energy saving embedded PC with ramdisk Use
- SSH Terminal
- Embedded Server (NAS+FTP)
- PC controlled Info-Screens like Store, Hotel or Airport TFT Info Screens
- Embedded Tablet PCs
Tinycorelinux is easy to setup and offer good documentations about config and application setup.
The requirements:
- x86 CPU
- 32MB> Diskspace
- Support Intel,AMD and Via CPU (Samuel 2 too, no cmov reboot bug)
- Support various kinds of media, USB Stick, FlashDisk, IDE and SATA-HDD, CDROM
- embedded S3 Via Graphic supported
- must have internet access to get additional software packages called modules
Must know:
At first read the howtos about the different kernel boot switches cause here you set parameters for the Linux on RAM.
for example:
tinycore user=tom vga=791 hdc1=home sda1=tce secure noautologin kmap=qwertz/latin-1 lang=de
- user= set the used username (default=tc)
- vga= enable framebuffer on screens
- hdc1= set a usbdisk plugged in to home
- sda1= set a usbstick to save installed programs like firefox
- secure= ask on boot for user + root password (must be)
- noautologin= stop at login prompt (Console)
- kmap set keymap (for German install kmap paket, if not US is forced)
- lang= set language (for other language install lang paket, if not US is forced)