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X-Terminals were a thing before SUN, but SUN had very nice ThinClients called SunRay that could "HotDesk". Your session was tied to a smartcard, as soon as you
by c4mpute 4y ago
X-Terminals were a thing before SUN, but SUN had very nice ThinClients called SunRay that could "HotDesk". Your session was tied to a smartcard, as soon as you plugged that in, your session appeared on that workplace. Pull the Smartcard, go somewhere else, plug it in, there was your session. Very cool and almost instant, as opposed to the supposed "alternative" our windows guys suggested, which was smartcard login to an rdesktop server, which took ages. The wire protocol wasn't really X11, but rather something VNC-like. The server software however could talk to either X11 or windows (with some horrible adapter software).
Edit: links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Ray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_terminal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X_terminal
Edit3: ancient demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-nzjdOj1w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-nzjdOj1w
- malkia 4y agoThanks!!!!
- wkat4242 4y agoSun Rays were indeed very cool. A bit like the thin client VDIs of today, but easier to use IMO. The smartcard was really handy. As always Sun was way ahead of their time. I still have some SunRays I was hoping to use for something but I never found a good use for them :(
- c4mpute 4y agoAck. I think there would be demand for a modern hotdesking solution that worked as quick and painlessly as SunRays. Like, plug in your Yubikey, do a FIDO exchange, get your VDI session. Should be implementable in software, all thinclients nowadays have USB.
- wkat4242 4y agoThis would be amazing. Most thin clients I know are way too complex, they have their own OS with a window interface, they don't really 'get out of the way' like the old X-Terminals or Sun Rays did.