Hackosis

Have some old boxes around? You can save money buy following the tutorial below and roll your own thin client using openSuSE 10.2 and a custom xdm script that loads a python script containing two button, one for shutting down the computer and one for logging into an RDP session.

Download openSuSE 10.2:
http://en.opensuse.org/Mirrors_Released_Version

1. Boot from openSuSE 10.2 Media. If you are having problems booting from cd or installing, a BIOS update may fix the problem.

2. Choose installation from the boot menu.

3. Select English on the language selection screen and click next.

4. Agree to the license agreement, and click next.

5. Choose new installation on the next screen. Click next.

6. Time zone default should be fine, click next.

7. On desktop GUI selection screen choose other and click select and choose minimal graphics system. Click next.

8. On the installation settings screen make sure the following is correct:

a. Partitioning: if you are using a compact flash card, create only one partition
and no swap. If using a hard drive delete any existing partitions and
dedicate the whole drive for linux partitions. Space needed: aproox. 1.5GB
b. Click Software and then click Details…the following patterns should be
selected: openSuSE base system, laptop (only if using a laptop), YaST
System Administration, openSuSE software management, X Windows system,
and fonts. Click filter at the top and select search. Search and check mark
rdesktop, python, and python-gtk. Click Accept and accept any dependancies.

9. Click Accept on the Installation Settings screen and click install when the confirm install window appears.

10. Wait for install to finish.

11. Set root password to whatever you like. Click next.

12. Set hostname to your liking. Set domain name if you wish. Uncheck Change hostname via DHCP. Check Write hostname to /etc/hosts. Click next.

13. On the network configuration screen click enabled where it says “Firewall is enabled” to disable the firewall. Click Disable IPv6. Click next.

14. Click next to test internet connection. After success, click next. If test fails, you have a problem.

15. On the novell customer center configuration screen select configure now and click next.

16. After registration is successful, on the online update screen, select run update and click next. Select any updates that have to do with xserver or kernel. Click accept to download updates. Click next after updates complete.

17. On the user authentication screen, select Local (/etc/password). Click next.

18. On the New local user screen, leave all fields blank and click next. Click yes at the prompt.

19. Click next at release notes.

20. At the hardware configuration screen make sure to not use more than 1024×768 and 16b color. Test the configuration before clicking next.

21. Click finish at the installation completed screen. Wow, it doesn’t even reboot before entering a working state. :)

22. At the login screen enter root for username and then the password.

23. After logging into the system you should recieve a xterm window. Type yast at the command prompt.

24. In yast, select system services (runlevel) under the system menu item.

25. Disable the following services:

a. alsasound (unless sound is needed.)
b. cron
c. cups
d. earlysyslog
e. esound (unless sound is needed.)
f. powersaved
g. syslog

26. Click finish to save runlevel configuration. Again, in yast, select bootloader, under system.

27. Select boot loader install inside of the boot loader settings window. Then, select Boot Loader Options. Enter a password and confirm. Click finish. Select Quit inside of yast to return to the command line.

28. At the command prompt, type the following commands in order:

cd /usr/local/bin
wget http://www.hackosis.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/thinclientmenu.zip
unzip -j thinclientmenu.zip
chmod u+x *

29. What the above commands do is download the startup scripts needed for the terminal and sets them executable.

30. At the command line type “vi thinclientmenu.py”. On the eighth line it should read “windowsHost = “xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx”. Make sure this is the correct terminal server. Also, replace ‘User’ with the username of the person that is going to be using the terminal. for a list of vi commands, search google.

31. After setting the terminal script, type the following commands:

cd /etc/init.d
vi xdm

32. From within the vi editor, move to the second line of the document and hold the ‘d’ key to delete all except the first line. Enter the following in the second line of the script “/usr/local/bin/startx-wrapper”. This will load our terminal script instead of the default display manager.

33. At the command prompt, type ‘reboot’ to restart the computer.

If you have trouble or the computer does not boot, reboot and at the boot loader edit the startup parameters and enter a ‘3′ into boot options or at the end of the second line of the boot configuration. This will start you in runlevel 3 and enable you to have command line access along with networking.

I hope that you had no problems during the installation, if so post in the comments. Also, this might work great with your XP machine being a multiuser terminal server.

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Tags: Budget, DIY, Linux, Open source, RDP, SUSE, Terminal, Thin client

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