[Nottingham] VNC box in place of port replicator

[Jason Irwin]

On 14/02/14 11:21, notlug wrote:
> I'm in the market for a laptop[1],
Get an older ThinkPad (e.g. T430) with, or fit, an SSD. Only downside is
the non-IPS and if I'm honest, rather poor screen[1]. The 9-cell battery
is good for up to 10 hours depending on usage. eBay is your friend.

The newer variants (T440 etc) have better IPS screens, but have other
design issues (e.g. crappy fake Apple click-pad, some brick if you use
GNU/Linux). Not cheap new either.

The big plus is the support. All the service manuals are available for
download and it's designed to be striped down in the field. You, as a
punter, can also order any bits you need direct from Lenovo/IBM.

If you like the System76 units, consider
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/laptop-computers/ or any other Clevo
box-shifter. What you will miss out on is the updated firmware and
testing, although you do gain a proper warranty by buying in the EU. In
the forums there are plenty of people asking about using GNU/Linux and I
seriously considered one of these for quite a time (what put be me off
in the end were various reports on build quality - some of those e.g.
keyboard have now been addressed).

> I was thinking, given the £100 a port replicator can cost,
> can I instead by a diddy little raspberry Pi-like box
> with networking, display and a few usb ports and
> set it up as a VNC client for all of the boxes
> (laptop, desktop, local server etc) I have
I've always found VNC to be slow. https://www.nomachine.com/ provide an
alternative, although I've not looked at it in a long time and don't
know if a Pi has the legs for it.

> Also, doing graphics over the network, I'm keen to make
> the networking gigabit.
If we're just talking remote desktop usage (not streaming HD vids or
something) then 100mbps should be fine. I use RDP on a 2mbps connection
back to Glasgow and don't notice any real issues.

> Raspberry Pi's, beagleboards etc
> all come with 10/100 network sockets.  Does anyone know
> of an equivalent that has at least 1 gigabit port,
> fullHD display output and a few usb ports ?

This has two gigabit ports:
http://utilite-computer.com/web/utilite-pr-140713
There's this too, but seem to be WiFi only (does n though)
http://gooseberry.atspace.co.uk/
The Cotton Candy is another WiFi unit
http://store.cstick.com/cotton-candy.html
Intel has a thing too.
Problem is, once you start going for gigabit etc the price goes up. You
could always get an HP MicroServer with £100 cashback - they do gigabit.
http://www.serversplus.com/hp_proliant_microserver
Heck, tempted to buy myself a second one now....

[1] ThinkWiki has a few suggestions on screen-swaps that can be made,
but you'll not be able to go IPS.

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