NComputing PCs

[broc]

Has anyone seen/tried NComputing PCs? The idea seems to be to share a single PC between up to 7 users using one or more PCI adapter cards & some little black boxes plus software.

 

More details at http://www.ncomputing.com

[plexer]

Some form of kvm over cat5 by the looks of it.

 

Ben

[Dos_Box]

Suse does this out of the box. The internet cafe at BETT was run like this.

[Midget]

HA! I was just about to ask about these. Did you get the flyer from Getech too? Any idea of cost?

 

Dos_box> except then you require X number of full fat clients anyway, these in theory would reduce deskspace, noise and power consumption. However I'd be interested to see more details on it as I've never seen it offered as part of SuSE. What do they call it?

[Midget]

Cheeky mares, they're rebranded Targa OfficeStations

http://www.targahk.com/OfficeStation/index.asp

 

Is this basically just a small Terminal Service/thinclient machine?

[mb007]

NComputing has 2 types of boxes. The L-Series "LAN" based version and the X-Series PCI card.

 

X-Series connects to 3 simple terminals via CAT-5 cable (up to 10 meters) and allows one PC to be shared with 4 users (it is also possible to use 2 cards in most systems). Hundreds if not thousands of schools are already using this in the US and rest of the world.

 

Windows terminal server software ships in the box, and installs like an application (very easy compared to setting up MS terminal services, Citrix or other thin clients). Linux (SuSe, Fedora) is in beta - but will be supported shorlty. The user logs onto his account at a standard Windows (or Linux) logon prompt, and gets a full desktop experience, just like running on the PC itself. The only real draw back is that video is limted to 1280x1024 (16-bit) and you cannot really do full-screen playback (OK for youtube type video however) - but for office type apps and internet browser it is perfect - low power, low noise, low cost, etc.

 

Linux comes with soemthing called VNC server - but that is designed to let a single user remotely connect to his desktop from another machine - not allow mutiple users on one machine - similar to Microsoft RDP .

 

The L-Series LAN based models plug into the network router and then work in a similar way. There is no embedded OS or CPU - all the intelligence is on the host PC, which makes this much simpler than traditional thin client. IF you use one, you'll swear you are on a desktop machine.

 

-mb (British ex-pat working for NComputing USA)

http://www.ncomputing.com