To use a Raspberry Pi as a thin client:
You will need a computer and a Raspberry Pi both connected to your network (preferably with cables rather than WiFi)
- Download and install VirtualBox onto your computer.
- Insert a Windows 98/XP/7 etc install disk or a Linux 'distro' disk. Or you can use a .iso file.
Then in VirtualBox click on New to make a new 'virtual machine' and go through the process of getting the VM (virtual machine) going. - Whilst the VM is running, install GuestAdditions onto the VM. This will make it run faster apparently.
- When the VM is not running click on Settings - System and unselct Floppy and CD/DVD from the Boot Order. This will stop the machine getting confused if you reboot it whilst a disk is in the drive.
- Then in Settings click on - Display - Remote Display, tick 'Enable Server' and set the port to 5001
If you make more than one VM use 5002 for your second VM 5003 for your third etc. - Start the machine. You can hold down Shift and click on Start to start it in 'headless' mode.
- On the Raspberry Pi open LXTerminal and type "sudo apt-get install rdesktop" this will install rdesktop to the Raspberry Pi.
- Find the IP address of your computer (lets say it's 192.168.0.7) then in LXTerminal type "rdesktop -f 192.168.0.7:5001" where 192.168.0.7 is the IP address of your computer and 5001 is the port number you gave for the virtual machine.
- You should now have see desktop of the VM on your Raspberry Pi. To exit press CTRL + ALT + ENTER
How well does it work? Well enough for editing documents but not enough for watching video.
To look into:
- Get the VMs to autostart on (a Windows) host machine startup - can start as a service on Linux.
- Redirection of audio.
- Client that's better with video than rdesktop?
- Protocols other than RDP - VMWare View, Citrix, OpenNX, Spice.
