• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Best free solution for virtualizion?

TheBuzzer

TheBuzzer

HACK THE WORLD!
Joined
Aug 15, 2005
Messages
13,024
I am wondering is there a free solution to make a powerful computer into a server that hosts a couple of virtual desktops.

Also the old computers can be used to connect to the virtual desktops somehow.

What is the best free solution for this?
 
TheBuzzer said:
I am wondering is there a free solution to make a powerful computer into a server that hosts a couple of virtual desktops.

Also the old computers can be used to connect to the virtual desktops somehow.

What is the best free solution for this?
Click to expand...

Try proxmox ve. Works ok with Linux desktops as guests. Haven't tried windows. You could also try esxi.
 
lopoetve said:
ESXi?
Click to expand...

What is ESXi?

Based on what I read it is just a place to host virtual servers but I have no way to get the old computers to connect to it or something.


It is like just half what I need.
 
Oh God... he's invaded other parts of the forum. Okay, fine... I'll play. You could use ESXi (Type 1 Hypervisor, and free) to host the VMs and then install TightVNC on them, and just VNC into the VMs from any machine (old, or new) on the network. Optionally, you could also use Terminal Services (or Remote Desktop) from the client machines to the VMs... but, some tyhings do not run well in Terminal Services mode.
 
It seems like tightvnc installs on windows or linux is there a client part that is like an os that boots directly to the remote server?
 
no, it is a remote control app, similar to Remote Desktop. The difference being that with VNC, you get access to the current running session. Terminal Services / Remote Desktop creates a new session, and disables things like video acceleration.

sounds like you need a real thin client solution, if you want the client to boot, and go right to a session initiation screen (where you can either make it auto-connect to a remote VM / machine). Keep in mind that for this, you will also require the ability to receive in the incoming request, on the "server" as a thin client initiated session. something has to provide session control to facilitate this. free solutions are likely available, but likely wonky and hard to troubleshoot, should something go wrong. as a proof of concept though, i'm sure it's doable. I have yet to try this, personally. you'll have to do some digging.
 
No, what you're looking for generally isn't free (Wyse terminals/etc), unless you're going to PXE boot something else.
 
thats what i was thinking, too, lopo. PXE booting isn't going to give him what he's after, though. He'd just be net booting his OS to the local machines, not offloading the processing from the slower machines to a more powerful one with sessions control.
 
yeah. none of it is going to be free or easy for this - I don't think ther'es an open source PCoIP bare metal client - is there?
 
I will try to write in more detail what I am looking for.

First a bootable os that will handle multiple microsoft windows virtual desktops. This will be on the powerful computer.


Now I have a bunch of old slow computers that I want it to be booting straight into some small thin client to connect to the server. Each computer will be connecting to a different virtual desktop image that the server has.


So what is the best free solution for doing this?
 
What i would do is ESXi with Virtual Windows Desktops.

Then on the old computer just do a minimal ubuntu desktop install with no applications except for VNC.

Grab the minimal install CD and dont select any roles so it will install just the base system.

Then once on the CLI

sudo aptitude install x-window-system-core gnome-core gdm lm-sensors gksu xtightvncviewer -R

This will give just what is needed to use VNC
 
Last edited:
yeah that's pretty much where I was headed, for the free solution. but, he's basically trying to do (as lopo pointed out) PCoIP, for free... which isn't likely to happen.
 
Setup your box with ESXi.

Deploy a win2k3/win2k8r2 server.

Put XP on old desktops.

MSTSC to server box on ESXi.
 
So you basically want PCoIP or VDI type functionality for free?

I'm going to throw it out there that if you don't have an idea about what Microsoft Desktop Virtualization is, and how much it costs, then it is probably not going to be something you will be setting up yourself.

You could, as others have posted, run Hyper-V server, install Windows virtual machines, then VNC/ RDC in.
 
You could get away with Citrix XenServer, it's pretty solid. Oh and it's free! :)
 
I agree with the ESXi + stripped out Ubuntu solution. If and when I end up upgrading a few of the terminals in my house that's going to basically be what I do. Toss everyhing on VM's and just have some very low power Atom TC's.

(next part is almost completely unrelated but i'm at work and feld like venting :p )

The hospital I work for has several hundred VM's and uses Wyse TC's to connect to them. It's a very elegant solution but of course they royally fucked up the implementation. And like all IT Admins they don't want to hear it from the guys who actually have to fix it when it borks. lol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top