Hey guys, I have a thin client sitting in my closet. Any suggestions on what I can do with it?

3 years ago by WarmSoda to c/selfhosted

I'm not going to network anything. It needs to be flashed or whatever to reset it. Can it be used as a storage device, or maybe an emulator box? I'm clueless over here. Any advice and suggestions would be great. Thanks!

bakavic 10 points 3 years ago

Perhaps you could share what is the model of your thin client? So we can get a grasp of what we’re dealing with.

Good starting points: https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/

save

path: 0 1240761, hotness: undefined, score: 10, children: 9

WarmSoda 6 points 3 years ago

Oh man, I'm that guy arnt I? Lol sorry.
She's a dell, ZxOQ Wyse.

I'm checking that link out, very cool

save

path: 0 1240761 1240851, hotness: undefined, score: 6, children: 8

Jacan 4 points 3 years ago

https://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/wyse/z/zx0q/

save

path: 0 1240761 1240851 1240965, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 7

WarmSoda 3 points 3 years ago

Yup that's the one

save

path: 0 1240761 1240851 1240965 1241089, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 6

Gormadt 4 points 3 years ago

You could set it up as an emulator box, I'm not sure how new of console you could go up to but you could probably run stuff pre-PS2 with it.

PS2 is pretty tough to emulate on older hardware.

save

path: 0 1240761 1240851 1240965 1241089 1241396, hotness: undefined, score: 4, children: 3

Jacan 3 points 3 years ago

Did you try to boot Linux from a USB? I would try that first

save

path: 0 1240761 1240851 1240965 1241089 1241320, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 1

lemonuri 9 points 3 years ago

You could use that machine as your home server. It would open up a lot of possibilities. Sync your phone contacts and calendars, backup all your systems, store/stream media, host your own clousldserver, your own Internet messenger server for family and friends (snikket for example). Host a Minecraft server for the little ones or whatever comes to mind.

save

path: 0 1243537, hotness: undefined, score: 9, children: 2

passepartout 8 points 3 years ago

That's what I do. I bought a thin client last year, because Raspberry Pi 4s were unavailable to me. So I (fortunately) bought a thin client and got into Proxmox. I have the following containers running on the machine (that i can think of right now):

Nextcloud (files, notes, contacts, calendars)
Jellyfin (media streaming)
Pi hole
docker host (with home assistant, traefik as reverse proxy for everything, anything else i want lol)
gitlab instance and kubernetes cluster (implemented in three containers, which is just for learning purposes)

Edit: some of the thing i want to do in the future:

paperless-ngx (server that a scanner can send files to so your pc doesn't have to be powered on i believe)
actual budget (budgeting)
mediawiki / kiwix (hosting wikipedia dumps)
some other dashboard than heimdall for links to all my services
a vpn i can log into from outside of my home network (used to have pivpn on my spare raspberry pi, but want to have it as a container)

Hope i got you some ideas (:

save

path: 0 1243537 1244048, hotness: undefined, score: 8, children: 1

WarmSoda 2 points 3 years ago

I don't know about any of those things. Thank you for listing then so I can look into them.

save

path: 0 1243537 1244048 1262905, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0

BobbyBandwidth 5 points 3 years ago

Pi hole

save

path: 0 1240963, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 1

WarmSoda 5 points 3 years ago

Eh I don't need a device just to block ads. Thank you for the suggestion though!

save

path: 0 1240963 1241224, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0

redcalcium 3 points 3 years ago

HomeAssistant should works great on this device. If you have a bunch of smart devices from different brands and want to consolidate them into a single local system, give HomeAssistant a go. There should be plenty of resource left to run pihole/Adguard as well.

I'm not sure if the GPU is fast enough to run the Steam Link client, but if it does, you can hook it to your tv so you can stream your PC games into the tv when needed.

You can also hook it into a TailScale network and set it as an exit relay so you can have a VPN from your phone/laptop that redirect all internet traffics through your home network. Very useful when you want to secure your connection when using public WiFi in a hotel or cafe.

save

path: 0 1242833, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0

richdotward 3 points 3 years ago

I've got a wyse 3040 with Ubuntu 22.04 lts running 24/7 just running pihole to block network adverts.

Then a wyse 5070 with a 256gb m2 ssd using windows 10 for my plex server and transferring files from my seedbox

Both work great with zero issues. Both in the frontroom and as no fans in them totally silent.

I was tempted to use one for emulation but don't really need anything my current rasp pi 4 can do.

save

path: 0 1252559, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0

lemonuri 3 points 3 years ago

save

path: 0 1243464, hotness: undefined, score: 3, children: 0

namelivia 2 points 3 years ago

Try running a fediverse app instance, Lemmy, Pleroma, peertube, owncast or something like that.

For example you could create an online tv channel joining together owncast and your movie/tv series collection

save

path: 0 1243288, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0

SaveComengs 2 points 3 years ago

you should selfhost lemmy

save

path: 0 1244760, hotness: undefined, score: 2, children: 0