Hi,

Apparently, the era of the Minitel is truly over...
200€ for an acceptable machine, it's clear that given the price of VPS,
my idea is not profitable...

Another question, how can I offer a managed IT services for
individuals, more or less on a large scale? That is, adding programs,
updates, security, etc... and everything that the average user doesn't
know or doesn't want to do...

This way, the end user can focus on using their computer rather than
its maintenance and operation.

Best regards,
White-Wolf

On Thu, 2025-06-05 at 00:16 -0700, David Christensen wrote:

On 6/4/25 18:14, white-wolf wrote:

Dear Debian Users,

I hope this message finds you well.

I am looking to set up a system using my Dell Latitude E4300 as a
thin
client connected to an OVH VPS to create a decentralized desktop environment. My Dell no longer has enough power to run Debian/Linux
with GNOME effectively, and instead of purchasing a new computer, I
would prefer to utilize a server for heavy computations and
operations
while using the Dell as a thin client for the user interface. I
have a
fiber optic connection and plan to connect via Wi-Fi.

I would appreciate any advice on how to properly size my VPS for
this
setup and if there are any tutorials or guides available for
configuring such a system. Everything will be running on
Debian/Linux
stable.

Thank you in advance for your help and suggestions.

Best regards,

White Wolf

"Thin client" is a network architecture where the server and client
are
on the same LAN.  When you power up the client, it finds the server, downloads a bootloader, and boots.  If you move the server to a
virtual
private server (VPS), you will need a "thick client" network
architecture where the client has an OS, SSH, and X.  You enable X forwarding on the server, create an SSH connection with X forwarding
from the client to the server, run X programs on the server, and the
X
programs display on the client:

https://reintech.io/blog/configuring-x11-forwarding-over-ssh-debian-12

That said, client-server systems rarely provide a satisfying
interactive
user experience.  The issue is latency -- long latency is annoying
and
unpredictable latency is maddening.

(The same comment applies to Wi-Fi.  Use a wired connection, if
possible.)

And, VPS's get expensive quickly.  Take a look at the price of a
"Dedicated CPU Plan" equivalent of an entry-level workstation with a quad-core processor, 8 GB RAM, and 160 GB of storage:

https://www.linode.com/pricing/

At $73/month, you could pay off a used workstation in a few months:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=dell+precision+xeon+8gb+ssd

Finally -- if you want to do "heavy computations and operations" in
the
cloud, also take a look at Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2):

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/

David

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 6/4/25 18:14, white-wolf wrote:

Dear Debian Users,

I hope this message finds you well.

I am looking to set up a system using my Dell Latitude E4300 as a thin
client connected to an OVH VPS to create a decentralized desktop
environment. My Dell no longer has enough power to run Debian/Linux
with GNOME effectively, and instead of purchasing a new computer, I
would prefer to utilize a server for heavy computations and operations
while using the Dell as a thin client for the user interface. I have a
fiber optic connection and plan to connect via Wi-Fi.

I would appreciate any advice on how to properly size my VPS for this
setup and if there are any tutorials or guides available for
configuring such a system. Everything will be running on Debian/Linux
stable.

Thank you in advance for your help and suggestions.

Best regards,

White Wolf

"Thin client" is a network architecture where the server and client are
on the same LAN. When you power up the client, it finds the server,
downloads a bootloader, and boots. If you move the server to a virtual
private server (VPS), you will need a "thick client" network
architecture where the client has an OS, SSH, and X. You enable X
forwarding on the server, create an SSH connection with X forwarding
from the client to the server, run X programs on the server, and the X
programs display on the client:

https://reintech.io/blog/configuring-x11-forwarding-over-ssh-debian-12


That said, client-server systems rarely provide a satisfying interactive
user experience. The issue is latency -- long latency is annoying and unpredictable latency is maddening.


(The same comment applies to Wi-Fi. Use a wired connection, if possible.)


And, VPS's get expensive quickly. Take a look at the price of a
"Dedicated CPU Plan" equivalent of an entry-level workstation with a
quad-core processor, 8 GB RAM, and 160 GB of storage:

https://www.linode.com/pricing/


At $73/month, you could pay off a used workstation in a few months:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=dell+precision+xeon+8gb+ssd


Finally -- if you want to do "heavy computations and operations" in the
cloud, also take a look at Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2):

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/


David

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Thu, 05 Jun 2025 03:14:24 +0200
white-wolf <[email protected]> wrote:

I am looking to set up a system using my Dell Latitude E4300 as a thin
client connected to an OVH VPS to create a decentralized desktop
environment. My Dell no longer has enough power to run Debian/Linux
with GNOME effectively, and instead of purchasing a new computer, I
would prefer to utilize a server for heavy computations and operations
while using the Dell as a thin client for the user interface. I have a
fiber optic connection and plan to connect via Wi-Fi.

I would appreciate any advice on how to properly size my VPS for this
setup and if there are any tutorials or guides available for
configuring such a system. Everything will be running on Debian/Linux
stable.

On the Laptop: install an almost minimal Debian with ssh client and
x2go client. As GUI something simple should suffice, e.g. icewm. This
doesn't waste much ressources.

On the server: install a complete desktop environment, ssh server and
x2go server. When you connect with x2go client to the server (via ssh)
you'll have access to a complete desktop in a window or full screen.

The size of the VPS depends on what you want to do. A desktop
environment, big browsers as firefox or chromium, libreoffice,
latex etc. will require at least 30-50 GB diskspace for the
system itself, and the expected amount of data in /home adds
to this estimate.
--
kind regards
Frank

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--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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white-wolf wrote:

Hi,

Apparently, the era of the Minitel is truly over...
200€ for an acceptable machine, it's clear that given the price of VPS,
my idea is not profitable...

Another question, how can I offer a managed IT services for
individuals, more or less on a large scale? That is, adding programs, updates, security, etc... and everything that the average user doesn't
know or doesn't want to do...

This way, the end user can focus on using their computer rather than
its maintenance and operation.

There are many such companies; they are called MSPs, Managed
Service Providers, and they share the following characteristics:

- they want to provide essentially the same IT environment for
all clients; otherwise the individual attention gets too
expensive

- they want to have medium-sized companies as their clients, not
individuals. Individual support becomes expensive

- they tend to sell hardware, software, and services all together

- they are generally Microsoft-focused


When the services are customized and provided by a group inside the organization that is the client, we call that an internal IT group.

When the services are customized and occasionally attended to by
an outside group, rather than maintained daily, we tend to call that
an IT consultancy.

There are Debian consultancies. There are universities, non-profits and
regular corporations which have Debian-focused IT groups -- usually,
but not always, as a subset of their general IT groups.

I am not aware of a Debian-focused MSP.

-dsr-

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 6/5/25 01:01, white-wolf wrote:

Hi,

Apparently, the era of the Minitel is truly over...
200€ for an acceptable machine, it's clear that given the price of VPS,
my idea is not profitable...

Another question, how can I offer a managed IT services for
individuals, more or less on a large scale? That is, adding programs, updates, security, etc... and everything that the average user doesn't
know or doesn't want to do...

This way, the end user can focus on using their computer rather than
its maintenance and operation.

Best regards,
White-Wolf

I did computer and network service as a part-time business about 15~20
years go for small businesses and individuals, when hardware and
software had a higher cost relative to labor. From the customers' point
of view, why should they pay $500 and wait 2-3 days for me to pick-up,
fix, and re-deploy their ugly old PC, when they could go to Costco and
walk out the door with a sexy new PC at the same price today? (Of
course, the readers of this list know the answer.) From my point of
view, why should I burn up countless hours of my time fixing crumby old
Windows PC's for people who argue with me about paying for a fraction of
my time or about reimbursing me for enterprise software licenses I
sublet to them? It was not a viable business model then; I expect it is
even less so today.


I was told by other techs turned businessmen that the only way to
succeed was to go full-time, get a stack of Microsoft certificates, and
make customers sign long-term service agreements with up-front and
monthly payments.


David

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