Wanted: A really tough test for thin client

[Guest Guest]

Music production software cannot run on thin clients.

[Lee_K_81]

USB peripherals such as scanners, webcams, IAW, etc.. Failing that as all others have said anything using flash or that is likely to be resource intensive.

[Ric_]

@lazerblazer: IMHO you are approaching this wrong. You have asked for which tasks thin clients are not suitable for - obviously the clients will fail the task.

 

Thin clients are great for everyday tasks - word processing, spreadsheets, web browsing, etc. Flash can be a problem, as can audio, but different technologies can be used - RDP isn't the most efficient protocol by any means.

 

Peripherals can also be used - for instance scanners work like a dream with Citrix (in fact it's like magic - you have a locally attached scanner and the image appears on the server!!!).

 

I'm currently creating an autoit script that can be used for load testing - it will open several applications and do some 'stuff' in a loop. By monitoring the server load as an increasing number of connections are made, I should be able to get a better idea of my maximum connection:server ratio.

[dhicks]

Music production software cannot run on thin clients.

 

Hang on, are we talking about "thin clients" in general or particular implementations? I still reckon one of the best general tests for thin client robustness is going to be running a chess playing program - it's about the one thing that really hammers our Edubuntu server as the chess-playing algorithm sucks up all the available processing time and memory it can.

 

--

David Hicks

[Lee_K_81]

I dont think the issue was that he isnt wanting to go thin clients provided that they can do the multimedia thing, it's more that the finance isnt there and he is trying to put the supplier off.

 

Citrix et al. may provide better media / peripheral support but they further increase the costs. A thin client implementation isnt all that cheap at first. There are huge initial outlays.

[Quackers]

Sibelius does not like running in a TS session if you use that.

[Guest Guest]

Hang on, are we talking about "thin clients" in general or particular implementations?

 

No thin client, or remote desktop (or anything like that) for that matter, will work properly with music production software.

 

Its just the way it works. The biggest issue with music production is latency. In a "normal" computer the latency can be quite high. Now imagine what its like in a thin client, passed to a TS, and passed back to be processed again by the thin client...

[laserblazer]

Lee is right, I had already written Thin Client off because we don't have the money to spend and I really didn't want the sales guy sending a lot of time trying to convince me otherwise. I had another supplier in a few weeks ago who said they could supply a thin system within our budget. The quote has just arrived and it is over double the figure we discussed. This wasted his time and mine.

 

As it happened, the guy today agreed straight away that it was a non-starter and is going to quote for ultra small HP stuff. I suspect that this will be well beyond our reach and we will end up with Lenovo Thinkcentres (which is fine by me)

 

Thanks for all of your help and advice.