7 ms·

TrueOS Pico – FreeBSD ARM/RPi Thin Clients

90 points by mboroi 10y ago

hcal 10y ago
I'm getting a 502 Bad Gateway. But while, we're here, why is Pico limited to 5 clients?
- peller 10y ago
  Seems like it's for commercial differentiation: "TrueOS Pico™ is currently in beta status. The client has experimental support for VirtualGL, and limited sound-forwarding availability. Additionally, there is a limit of 5 concurrent sessions on the server side. Licensing options will be announced at a later date."
snvzz 10y ago
As the site seems to be down, here's an alternative: http://www.raspbsd.org/ http://www.raspbsd.org/
- voltagex_ 10y ago
  That's not really an alternative. The posted project is a thin client/server setup that just happens to target Raspberry Pi computers. The Linux equivalent would be something like LTSP (http://www.ltsp.org/ http://www.ltsp.org/)
  - snvzz 10y ago
    Oh, I see what you mean. Page finally loaded, thankfully.
peller 10y ago
Link requires a trailing slash: https://www.trueos.org/trueos-pico/ https://www.trueos.org/trueos-pico/
- protomyth 10y ago
  could some mod fix the link as the trailing slash works
- sctb 10y ago
  Thanks, updated.
vjdhama 10y ago
Google cached page : http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.trueos.org/trueos-pico/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...
cyberpunk 10y ago
What protocol is being used between the clients and the server? rPI's aren't too far off sunrays which worked very well, but I think ALP is prop? I've not had a play with Spice, shurely this isn't just X forwarding over SSH?
- LeoPanthera 10y ago
  It says right on the page. X11 over SSH with optional VirtualGL.
voltagex_ 10y ago
I think http://www.virtualgl.org/About/Introduction http://www.virtualgl.org/About/Introduction (used in this product) is actually more interesting - has anyone used it?
- rzzzt 10y ago
  VirtualGL is/was used in Bumblebee, the support software for Optimus cards on Linux: https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/FAQ#how-it-works https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/FAQ#how-...
- toddnni 10y ago
  I was interested in the thin client concept few years ago and tried virtualgl. It is really nice and impressive. There are few different configurations available. I aimed for low latency and 30 fps gaming was easy to achieve over 1gb link (it needs wide bandwith as expected).
snadal 10y ago
Our company has been running LSTP on commodity hardware since 2013 for a development team, and I am truly happy with the result. For a long time, a 2013 i7 CPU with 32 GiB RAM running LTSP over ESXi was more than enough for intensive use of 5 thin clients. We've recently switched to a more powerful server (refurbished 48 AMD cores / 256 GB RAM) running Proxmox and despite some issues that still needs minor tweaking, I am very happy with it. The only gray area, and the reason I am always looking for alternatives to LTSP (NX2Go is the strongest candidate), is the huge bandwidth used by LTSP: 8 Thin clients needs a sustained 600 Mbps. I'm afraid scaling over 10 / 15 workstations will require expensive network equipment but graphic user experience is near native in all aspects. I highly recommend to anyone that is in doubt of using LTSP or any other thin client setup in production, give it a try because it actually worth it in all aspects.
- girvo 10y ago
  > scaling over 10/15 will require expensive network equipment Hopefully, that won't be the case soon! [0] I've no idea how far away the tech is for production use, but I'm quite excited by it myself. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5GBASE-T_and_5GBASE-T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5GBASE-T_and_5GBASE-T
  - gonzo 10y ago
    2.5gbps exists today. 10g switches are under $100/port now.
    - snadal 10y ago
      Can you point to any 10g switch on that price range? Last time I searched for there all were over $700 - $1000 USD. Alternative was to use a 4 ports NIC with bonding but 10Gb will be far more easy and stable.
      - aioprisan 10y ago
        Here's a good Reddit thread that I used in the past when I set up a 10gb switch a few years back, and it only cost me around $200: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/2s5x3s/10gb_switches/ https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/2s5x3s/10gb_switch...
rcarmo 10y ago
I'd love to see a demo of this so that we could gauge performance and software support.
Yuioup 10y ago
I would be nice if there was a video demonstrating the thin client capabilities of this. I for one would like to see the OpenGL in action (yes, show me games!). Plus, which Pi is this made for? I am assuming the Raspberry Pi 2 & 3 (ARMv7). I have all 3 model B's so I'll check this out.

90 points by mboroi 10y ago

hcal 10y ago

I'm getting a 502 Bad Gateway. But while, we're here, why is Pico limited to 5 clients?

peller 10y ago
Seems like it's for commercial differentiation: "TrueOS Pico™ is currently in beta status. The client has experimental support for VirtualGL, and limited sound-forwarding availability. Additionally, there is a limit of 5 concurrent sessions on the server side. Licensing options will be announced at a later date."

snvzz 10y ago

As the site seems to be down, here's an alternative: http://www.raspbsd.org/ http://www.raspbsd.org/

voltagex_ 10y ago
That's not really an alternative. The posted project is a thin client/server setup that just happens to target Raspberry Pi computers. The Linux equivalent would be something like LTSP (http://www.ltsp.org/ http://www.ltsp.org/)
- snvzz 10y ago
  Oh, I see what you mean. Page finally loaded, thankfully.

peller 10y ago

Link requires a trailing slash: https://www.trueos.org/trueos-pico/ https://www.trueos.org/trueos-pico/

protomyth 10y ago
could some mod fix the link as the trailing slash works
sctb 10y ago
Thanks, updated.

vjdhama 10y ago

Google cached page : http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://www.trueos.org/trueos-pico/ http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:/...

cyberpunk 10y ago

What protocol is being used between the clients and the server? rPI's aren't too far off sunrays which worked very well, but I think ALP is prop? I've not had a play with Spice, shurely this isn't just X forwarding over SSH?

LeoPanthera 10y ago
It says right on the page. X11 over SSH with optional VirtualGL.

voltagex_ 10y ago

I think http://www.virtualgl.org/About/Introduction http://www.virtualgl.org/About/Introduction (used in this product) is actually more interesting - has anyone used it?

rzzzt 10y ago
VirtualGL is/was used in Bumblebee, the support software for Optimus cards on Linux: https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/FAQ#how-it-works https://github.com/Bumblebee-Project/Bumblebee/wiki/FAQ#how-...
toddnni 10y ago
I was interested in the thin client concept few years ago and tried virtualgl. It is really nice and impressive. There are few different configurations available. I aimed for low latency and 30 fps gaming was easy to achieve over 1gb link (it needs wide bandwith as expected).

snadal 10y ago

Our company has been running LSTP on commodity hardware since 2013 for a development team, and I am truly happy with the result. For a long time, a 2013 i7 CPU with 32 GiB RAM running LTSP over ESXi was more than enough for intensive use of 5 thin clients. We've recently switched to a more powerful server (refurbished 48 AMD cores / 256 GB RAM) running Proxmox and despite some issues that still needs minor tweaking, I am very happy with it. The only gray area, and the reason I am always looking for alternatives to LTSP (NX2Go is the strongest candidate), is the huge bandwidth used by LTSP: 8 Thin clients needs a sustained 600 Mbps. I'm afraid scaling over 10 / 15 workstations will require expensive network equipment but graphic user experience is near native in all aspects. I highly recommend to anyone that is in doubt of using LTSP or any other thin client setup in production, give it a try because it actually worth it in all aspects.

girvo 10y ago
> scaling over 10/15 will require expensive network equipment Hopefully, that won't be the case soon! [0] I've no idea how far away the tech is for production use, but I'm quite excited by it myself. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5GBASE-T_and_5GBASE-T https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5GBASE-T_and_5GBASE-T
- gonzo 10y ago
  2.5gbps exists today. 10g switches are under $100/port now.
  - snadal 10y ago
    Can you point to any 10g switch on that price range? Last time I searched for there all were over $700 - $1000 USD. Alternative was to use a 4 ports NIC with bonding but 10Gb will be far more easy and stable.
    - aioprisan 10y ago
      Here's a good Reddit thread that I used in the past when I set up a 10gb switch a few years back, and it only cost me around $200: https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/2s5x3s/10gb_switches/ https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/2s5x3s/10gb_switch...

rcarmo 10y ago

I'd love to see a demo of this so that we could gauge performance and software support.

Yuioup 10y ago

I would be nice if there was a video demonstrating the thin client capabilities of this. I for one would like to see the OpenGL in action (yes, show me games!). Plus, which Pi is this made for? I am assuming the Raspberry Pi 2 & 3 (ARMv7). I have all 3 model B's so I'll check this out.