[K12OSN] Outdoor Thin Client (and possibly wireless)

[Angus Carr]

Carl Keil wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> 2 Possibly related questions.
>
> Preamble:  The reason I installed a K12ltsp server in my house was so 
> that when the time came I could plop a $0-$50 computer anywhere in the 
> house and have a decent workstation.  My kids use the one in the 
> living room and I use it and the one in the kitchen to play music via 
> mp3's.  I also use the clients to surf the web and check email, etc.  
> I am planning on deploying thin clients in the kids' rooms when they 
> ask for them.
> Anyway, with the nice whether I'm suddenly struck with the 
> overpowering urge to put a client out in the backyard - mainly for 
> tunes while I'm gardening, cooking, entertaining and hanging out.  I 
> want it to be a permanent installation with an amp and speakers.  What 
> are the pitfalls of doing this?  I have no budget for the project, but 
> I was going to try to get a cheap cabinet or something (and 
> weatherproof it to the best of my ability) to serve as a "shed" for 
> it.  But it can't have a flat panel or nice cpu, or be a laptop.  Does 
> anyone have any advice for somebody about to attempt such a thing?  
> ("Don't."  Perhaps)  I don't want to electrocute anyone, start a fire 
> or hurt my network, etc.  There's already GFCI electrical outlet right 
> where I want to put it.
>
> The second question is, does anyone know when fedora (and therefore 
> k12ltsp ) is going to support "G" wireless cards?  I installed Fedora 
> via my trusty K12ltsp 4.4.2 disks on a friends laptop, but now we're 
> finding it impossible to get wifi working.  I even tried the ndis  
> (IIRC) wrapper but I couldn't find the kernel source in the install to 
> recompile it.  (Probably a sign from the scandanavian gods that I 
> shouldn't attempt such a thing.)
>
> I'm also wondering if a wireless "G" thin client is possible, 
> therefore simplifying the outdoor scenario.
> Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
>
> ck
It sounds like you want a MythTV station, using a remote to run the 
thing, and putting a display buried somewhere. I keep meaning to set up 
a laptop as a piece of furniture running MythTV so I can do something 
similar in "non-computerised" spaces in my house. I looked at wireless, 
but since I can't reliably boot from wireless, that's just not going to 
happen- it needs a local filesystem to boot from. The media can all be 
streamed off the main machine, over 802.11b at 11MB, frankly. It's rare 
that that won't work. The media is put to the screen locally.

I don't want the machine to be a general purpose machine, but have an 
icon to jump to the server using VNC or some other form of network 
screen sharing. If I need to do real work in another room, I can hook up 
a wire, or whatever, and use another laptop.

Those are my thoughts on the subject, anyway.

Angus Carr.