Complete Noob question - Looking to connect thin clients to linux VMs

[Paul_Spicer]

Hi Guys and Gals,

Firstly, apologies if I've posted this is the wrong forum, it seemed to be the one best suited to what I'm after, but if not then just let me know and I'll post there.

I've got an ESX 4.0 server that is used to run VMs for training sessions. At present we're either using VM Player or VNC on desktops to access the VMs. The VMs are 90% Linux, but we also have some Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 machines. The desktops we're connecting from are old, slow, and put out a lot of heat. I used to maintain a training environment at another company where I used a Citrix server and connected thin client devices. As the majority or machines I'll be using here are Linux that puts pay to RDP, so I've been looking at using thin clients that connect direct to the VM on the ESX, essentially running a kind of thin client VM Player over the network. I've found thin clients that say they're 'VMWare ready', but have not been able to find any definitive information on how to set up the VMs, server-side software requirements (in case there's anything special that needs doing on the ESX, VM Viewer?) or recommendations for thin client hardware.

Any advice would be gratefully received, and if there's any more information you need then just ask.

Many thanks,

Spicer

[TomHowarth]

what you need to look for is a TC that can handle VNC.

[Paul_Spicer]

Cheers Tom, I was hoping there was a means of connecting to the VMs directly from the thin clients, say with something like PCoIP, without having to use a 3rd party connection tool like VNC. I wouldn't be a problem using VNC, but would be great if the clients had something like a remote VMPlayer or something like that.

[TomHowarth]

Unfortunately the only view agent is for windows based machines,  there are people that have got the windows View agent working on linux boxes by using wine nd rDesktop.  but remember that this is not a supported solution.

it is in French, but Google Translate does a reasonable job:

http://ds45.blogspot.ie/2010/06/view-experience-contre-nature.html