You could throw something together with Alpine Linux
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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I second this, Alpine is seriously tiny!
You can't display things and run in a low memory footprint. That's not how it works as you need a buffer.
What are you trying to do? You could build a custom image but that it likely harder than you need.
"64-128mb ram" is hardly "low memory"!
For video it is. Unless you want your desktop to be in 128p
It's probably plenty for vnc or spice though. I had a 486 with 8mb of video RAM that could do 1024x748 display resolutions...
~~no you can't. That would require 1.6mb of ram for a single frame. In reality you need lots and lots of frames with hardware decoding plus network overhead.~~
Not to mention that CPU would be way to slow to run anything but the bare Linux kernel (also the kernel requires 8mb)
Edit: I misread. I thought you were talking about computer memory not video memory. That makes more sense. Although your 30 year old CPU isn't going to be running VNC or Spice any time soon. (Your welcome to prove me wrong)
1024x768x24bit is 2.4 MB
Wait, actually wouldn't it be 1.6 mb? Your connection probably doesn't use full 24bit color. (Its not HDR)
Anyway my point still stands.
I mean... I did. 🤷♂️
https://www.google.com/search?q=%281024++768++32%29+bits+in+mb
Using 32 bits to be conservative that's a bit over 3MB.
Granted I couldn't play most games at that resolution on a 486 but it worked for a desktop resolution.
You kids with your GPUs with gigabytes of memory and your blue jeans...
Different time I suppose. I ran Linux on a old machine with a Pentium and 32mb of ram with systemd about 2 years ago. Sadly it died and now it won't turn on.
I am pretty sure my p200mmx with 64mb ram could run a vnc client while listening to a blink182 mp3 in XMMS using the enlightenment window manager
Do it. I want to see it happen but I am doubtful
Although your 30 year old CPU isn’t going to be running VNC or Spice any time soon. (Your welcome to prove me wrong)
Of course not - it couldn't even play MP3s without stuttering. I was just addressing the question of memory constraints.
Megabytes, a thousand of which make a gigabyte. Chrome in my machine right now is taking over one gigabyte of memory, that alone is using more than 8 times what OP wants the whole system to. It's definitely an ask for low memory, almost embedded levels of ram.
Chrome is actually doing a lot of work to display modern webpages though. A thin client only needs to receive a video stream and send inputs to a server. That can be done with an extremely low memory footprint. The Steam Link only had 512MB of RAM and it actually ran a steam client (which contains embedded chromium) instead of acting as a pure thin client.
I wouldn't be against something that needs 1gb or 4gb. Of course it's different hardware class, but if it actually does a better job, it would be fine.
Although I suspect for a thin client, 512mb would be more than enough and adding more wouldn't improve much of anything.
You can’t display things and run in a low memory footprint.
Rule 2 - No misinformation
I've been using crunchbang++ on a Dell wyse thin client laptop. It doesn't auto login or anything but seem to work fine I got it on woot for 60 buckd
Neat, never heard of that, this thread is a gold mine.
Porteus kiosk thin client might be an option.
- Choose Fedora uCore
- Merge Sunshine from the Bazzite project
Result: automated uCore + Sunshine image, always up to date and ready to flash on a thumbdrive.
I don't understand what this is but it looks awesome. It sounds like nixos.
I imagine you could find a lot of options. Just a quick google turned up ThinStation, which only needs 30-50MB if storage and 64MB+ of RAM. A bit outdated, but should work fine.
You could also make your own OS with LFS if you want to optimize it to the extreme.
Thanks that looks pretty good. Ihad searched and found nothing. The internet is full of folks who "just get X linux distro and write a bunch of scripts"
It even supports Spice. Only thing missing is moonlight support !
The only one I ever used was https://ltsp.org/ , but it's been years, so I have no idea how it's doing now. It was great for thin clients.