fafster Posted March 20, 2008 Posted March 20, 2008 Thought I'd create a new thread, and put anything I learn in here. I know Geoff is trying out the product, too. Would just like to say cheers to matstones, had the evaluation unit through the post this morning and am playing with it now. On the whole I'm impressed. Due to our restrictions with dhcp here, everything has to be done through the configuration file. Luckily this is pretty straightforward so in the space of thirty minutes play time, I've gone from a parcel in my hands to an rdp session into another workstation. Now it's a case of figuring out how to secure the device to the monitor...
Geoff Posted April 25, 2008 Posted April 25, 2008 Yep, also evaluated one. Seems to do what we want when talking to our citrix farm. The VESA monitor mounting system looks useful too. I'll be trying it out with W2k8 terminal services soon too. So I'll let you all know how that goes.
fafster Posted April 25, 2008 Author Posted April 25, 2008 I've had a slight issue with the management software, whereby if I try connecting to the terminal, the terminal itself would throw a wobbly and die. Re-installing the software fixed this though, but was rather strange. I'm trying to figure a way, short of writing a script in ruby or something, that would enable me to roll out settings files to a number of the machines simultaneously.
Axel Posted April 25, 2008 Posted April 25, 2008 Fafster, This is easy. Setup one terminal as you require. (Ie typically enable DHCP and enter TSE IP address). Use AxRM to scan network This will list all Axel devices (the eval in your case) Right click on terminal and select "Get terminal configuration" and tick button to save to file. This gives you a template config file, which can be modified if necessary but probably no need to) You can now select a single or multiple other terminal from AxRM and right click and select "Send Configuration file" - specifying template file above. This will send your template to all terminals selected in one hit. Takes about 5 seconds per terminal and can be timed to happen after hours) Job done. This does assume the "new" terminals already have an IP address - which at this stage they may not. There are various ways to resolve this. 1) A new 'virgin' terminal will "announce" itself automatically within AxRM - you can click on it and give IP address and send template file. 2) You can configure AxRM to automatically, with no human interaction to detect new terminals and download template config file. (You can of course specify different template files for different terminals - ie you may want staff terminals to attached to different server to students... To test this with your demo unit, take snap shot of current config and save as file - delete its entry in AxrM as above - set terminal back to factory defaults, (setup/advanced/more/factorydefaults) - and switch terminal on (ie emulate virgin install for terminal and AxRM software) The terminal will "pop" up in AxRM, click on it, give it a tempory IP address - download config template (which will over-write existing setup - ie delete IP address given above and enable DHCP... There is lots more AxRM can do - but I don't want to overload the post...
Butuz Posted April 25, 2008 Posted April 25, 2008 I should have my test unit on Monday - looking forward to it! The simplicity and lack of operating system etc sounds very interesting! Butuz
fafster Posted April 25, 2008 Author Posted April 25, 2008 Cheers for the advice. I'm going to have a play with that first thing Monday morning.
Butuz Posted April 29, 2008 Posted April 29, 2008 (edited) The postie brought my M70 yesterday. A minute after it was unpacked I was logging into the system on it. What a fantastic bit of kit! The abolition of a traditional operating system on flash storage in favour of a basic hard coded "bios" type operating system is inspired! I thought our HP Linux/Windows CE thin clients were easy to set up - but the M70 takes the biscuit! The fact that they include a VESA monitor mount is brilliant too - having these tidily mounted to the back of a TFT with all the cables cable tied up nice is super slick. Overall - a big thumbs up. They are cheaper than other thin client units, in theory they should be more reliable as there is even less to go wrong. I'll give it 9/10 as there is one area where they could improve on - having a headphone socket in order to pass sound back to the user would be a bonus. Will take some photos now for you lot. Butuz Edited April 29, 2008 by Butuz
fafster Posted April 29, 2008 Author Posted April 29, 2008 Give Axel a shout, he should be able to help.
Geoff Posted April 29, 2008 Posted April 29, 2008 RRP is £136 + VAT, however I think there's an 'education' deal you can get if you talk to Axel direct.
Axel Posted April 29, 2008 Posted April 29, 2008 We do have special pricing for "Educational Establishments" but we can only give RRPs here as this essentially a public forum. Please send me an email at [email protected] and I will confirm our educational pricing by return. Reassured you won't get spammed or be subjected to any other form of 'sales pressure' !
Geoff Posted May 2, 2008 Posted May 2, 2008 I'll be trying it out with W2k8 terminal services soon too. So I'll let you all know how that goes. I can confirm that this works.
patshaw101 Posted May 19, 2008 Posted May 19, 2008 Thanks to Axel for delivering our trial unit. I've had chance to test it out and it's the easiest way to get access to our TS server. We're currently testing the water when it comes to thin client so are testing AXEL's unit as well as trying out thinstation with some 5+ year old computers. One element I've tested is the performance of video (basic video streaming eg. youtube). On my thinstation PC's, the video viewing performance is much better than expected. However, performance was not so great on AXEL's unit. Probably down to the difference in Video RAM. Has anyone else had any experience of using the AXEL unit when viewing basic video streaming? How much Video RAM is on the AXEL M70 unit?
Axel Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 (edited) Thanks for the feedback, we are working hard to dispell the myth that setting up thin clients needs to be complicated, and your post is nice confirmation that we are getting it right.... We would not propose thin clients for multi-media applications. As thin clients are essentially all about moving pixels in one direction and keyboard strokes in the other direction, transfering moving images massively increases the workload when compared to more office type applications, which is the market thin clients are currently optimised to operate at... It doesn't help that sound and vision have to be "realtime" for humans to enjoy so the nature of TCP/IP with collisions and retries, spikes and troughs, while efficient for getting files from one place to another reliably is not ideal for multi-media, where realtime is more important than data integrity Microsoft don't provide syncronisation between sound and vision - so if you reach a network bottleneck as more users pile in you may lose syncronisation. (Citrix do provide syncronisation). I am not qualified to comment on Thinstation - the idea to re-use old PCs sounds good on several levels. I would not dispute an old PC has much more memory and CPU than a new thin-client, but I suspect that this would simpy shift the bottleneck away from the TC towards the network or server as more users connect. It would be interesting to know how many Thinstations can concurrently stream Youtube before your server/network reaches saturation and the quality starts to break up..... Edited May 21, 2008 by Axel
Butuz Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 I took some pictures. Open the box, take one Axel M70, one power adaptor and one VESA mount kit: http://www.lewisgirlsschool.com/images/reviews/axel11.jpg http://www.lewisgirlsschool.com/images/reviews/axel10.jpg Take one TFT Screen with VESA compliant mounting holes: http://www.lewisgirlsschool.com/images/reviews/axel08.jpg Screw VESA mount to TFT with the suppled screws: http://www.lewisgirlsschool.com/images/reviews/axel07.jpg Slide thin client unit onto the VESA mount, and plug in all cables: http://www.lewisgirlsschool.com/images/reviews/axel02.jpg You now have one very neat and tidy and space saving design: http://www.lewisgirlsschool.com/images/reviews/axel01.jpg
Butuz Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 Turn the unit on. The very first time you booy it up it goes into a little set up screen where you can either specify a manual IP address, or set it to use DHCP, You also specify the IP address of a thin client sevrer for it to boot. Then when you boot it up it simply checks the network link, gets DHCP details, then boots to tyour thin client server: http://www.lewisgirlsschool.com/images/reviews/axel03.jpg http://www.lewisgirlsschool.com/images/reviews/axel04.jpg http://www.lewisgirlsschool.com/images/reviews/axel05.jpg http://www.lewisgirlsschool.com/images/reviews/axel06.jpg You now have a fully working thin client. Total time it takes to unpack and set up initially? 5 minutes max. Total time it takes to boot to the log in screen? 30 seconds. (thats with DHCP, would be about 22 seconds if you specified an IP address manually). Only thing these current units are missing is a 3.5mil sound jack to pass sound back from the server to the clients. Hopefuly Axel will add this on to future clients as that would make them complete and 10/10. For now I give 9/10. Put it this way - I won't be buying any more HP 5xxx Thin clients. Butuz 4
Geoff Posted May 21, 2008 Posted May 21, 2008 Yep, they are great. We will be using them where we can, but we need sound for some deployments, so I'm having to buy HP thin clients for those locations. Unless Axel can come up with a sound enabled version of the M70.
Axel Posted June 13, 2008 Posted June 13, 2008 We should have sound within a couple of months.... (We are proposing deploying sound via USB, the rational being doing so will avoid requiring specific audio hardware, so this will hopefully maintain a good compromise of product cost and sound support....
fafster Posted June 16, 2008 Author Posted June 16, 2008 When you say via USB, how would you achieve that?
Butuz Posted June 16, 2008 Posted June 16, 2008 Yes I am wondering exactly what you meant about USB sound? I have to admit that however you get sound working - a standard 3.5mm jack would be of preference in my oppinion. Andrew
Geoff Posted June 16, 2008 Posted June 16, 2008 We should have sound within a couple of months.... (We are proposing deploying sound via USB, the rational being doing so will avoid requiring specific audio hardware, so this will hopefully maintain a good compromise of product cost and sound support.... Any sort of 'USB dongle' would rapidly disappear in our school environment. So we probably would end up using an alternative thin client (eg, we can get the HP 5530's for ~£100 now) with onboard sound. Please reconsider, I don't mind paying more for integrated sound.
Axel Posted June 16, 2008 Posted June 16, 2008 We are anticipating our customers who require sound will simply use headphones/speakers etc that connect directly to USB port. For example (though in no way recommending) http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/internet_headsets_phones/devices/3622&cl=gb,en
SpuffMonkey Posted June 16, 2008 Posted June 16, 2008 We are anticipating our customers who require sound will simply use headphones/speakers etc that connect directly to USB port. For example (though in no way recommending) http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/webcam_communications/internet_headsets_phones/devices/3622&cl=gb,en No no no - £35 for a set of headphones that in all probability get trashed - you need a standard jack socket.
Axel Posted June 16, 2008 Posted June 16, 2008 ....as I said, I wasn't recommending that particular product, I gave that URL as an example that USB headphones "exist". We don't supply non Axel equipment I am sure with a little surfing one can find a model to suit in terms of price and quality.... ....and even factoring in the above "high-end" phones, the M70w + these phones will still work out lower cost than the competition....!
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