Thin Client and Smartboard

[laserblazer]

Is anyone aware of any problems running Smartboards this way. Currently we are looking at a Citrix based system with HP workstations.

Is there anything else you would suggest I ask the potential suppliers to prevent too many surprises if we go this route.

We've been told (by the potential suppliers) that HP do special deals for education along with low interest leasing. I've not received any figures yet but would be interested in your views. If we were to lease it would be more likely that we could do the whole lot in one go.

[Gatt]

yeah i was looking at this - the problem is that Smart dont yet have a driver for Thin Clients - though i think i have them looking at developing one now!

[Geoff]

I do not have any smartboards here to try I'm afraid. USB might work though, it depends how the driver works.

[Ric_]

If you can install the device drivers on the client then re-direction should be fine with Citrix. Basically, what this means is that youwould need a XPe client.

Personally, I don't like the XPe terminals because they seem a little pointless. I simply use 'full fat' clients for running devices such as this. I suppose I should get around to trying the Interwrite Linux drivers on my Linux clients but I have no need at the moment since staff simply use their laptops.

[Gatt]

I couldn't get XPe clients to auto start an RDP session.. gave up and put HP's debian build on instead

[laserblazer]

A friend, who is a network geru in the USA, is not sure that thin client is the way to go. He suspects that we will run into problems with some of the "noddy" educational software we use and that there will be no support when things go wrong. The above comments about Smarttech not having thin client drivers yet seems to support this. I asked Smarttech the question about thin client and so far have not had any reply!

[laserblazer]

Here's the reply.

The Notebook software will work fine but the SMART Board will not be interactive as the service needs to be running on the computer that the board is connected to. If you can somehow configure the thing client so that it tricks the board into believing that the service is running locally there shouldn’t, be any reason the board will not work as it should.

[Gatt]

So how do you "trick" the TC?
I would imagine that if it was WinCE or XPe based you could install the drivers onto the TC, but what about Linux?
Also how would you "map" the drivers to the RDP session?

[Geoff]

You just redirect the usb port and hope for the best.

[Ric_]

tbh... I don't see the problem. If you have a TC with XPe (or even use an XP client) you can install the standard device drivers and to all intents and purposes the board is like a big mouse.

When you log into your terminal session (be it ICA, RDP, Tarantella, etc.) the board will work fine and the tools will just appear 'around' the session.

The problem only arises if you use stateless devices that network boot because the drivers are unlikely to be available. At this point you aren't looking at the bigger picture though... you need one device in a room capable of running the board (or any obscure peripheral for that matter) so why not just stick a single XP client in or utilise a staff member's laptop? There is nothing to say you cannot mix thin and 'fat' clients on your network - in fact IMHO this is the only way to run a successful network and you must assess what hardware is required to best complete that particular job (that may be a Windows machine, Linux machine, Mac, thin client, skinny client, fat client,...).

[Axel]

Thin clients support touch-screens, and it seems Smartscreens are just big touch screens - so this should just work out of the box....

The only potential issue could be calibration - but your thin-client supplier should be able to sort that out....

[bio]

you can also try to virtualize the smartboard program with thinstall or xenocode. (the thinclient can grab the program from a share)

bio..

[dan400007]

I'd agree that its definately worth a try using something like SoftGrid. That will virtualize the services to the user running them and could potentially work.

[Gatt]

@Ric_ - I had the same thought regarding XPe but I lost favour in XPe in that I couldn't work out how to get the HP 5720's TCs to boot up straight into an RDP session so shoved the t5725 debian image on them..

[Ric_]

@Ric_ - I had the same thought regarding XPe but I lost favour in XPe in that I couldn't work out how to get the HP 5720's TCs to boot up straight into an RDP session so shoved the t5725 debian image on them..

I prefer to use a shortcut on the desktop (displaying the logon screen eats a Citrix license). To launch an rdp connection on startup, simply add a shortcut along the lines of 'mstsc /v myTerminalServer' or change the shell to that instead.