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I happened to pick up a "thin client" the other day (it's currently running win XP embedded) at 1ghz 1gb ram / 1gb flash I thought it might be useful for putting a light distro of linux on and using as an internet browsing/spare machine. Then I thought - I wonder if I could use it as a media centre? Of course I guess any tv recording functions would be well beyond its capabilities.
Has anyone tried anything similar? Either perhaps with a usb stick for o/s or maybe replacing the 1gb flash with a 2.5" drive?
It looks great and uses only 15w!
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da-anda
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2015-06-05, 16:15
(This post was last modified: 2015-06-05, 16:17 by da-anda.)
I doubt it can handle 1080p video decoding, but you can ofc give it a try (try booting OE from USB stick).
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Interestingly, it's got 1080 graphics courtesy of a radeon 700 on board chip set, so you never know. I fired it up with Ubuntu off a usb but it was too slow - maybe the stick itself or not enough ram. A light operating system might work, especially if I loaded it onto the 1gb flash - I'll experiment. What would you say would be the best version of Kodi if I fancy a try? Something linux.
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If a RPi can handle Kodi, this one should, too. With the Ubuntu family, try Lubuntu. That works very well with old(er) machines.
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I'll get Lubuntu then - only thing is my internet is screwed up right now so the download is gonna take ages!
Will report back - but any ideas for a linux type distro with Kodi built in or so?
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There's Kodibuntu, of course. Boots directly to Kodi.
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da-anda
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I'd not use any Ubuntu as it's adding way to much OS overhead - try booting OE from USB and see if it works. OE only consists of like 100 MB that are loaded directly into RAM, so a rather fast bootup and also quick while running. But as said, the GPU veeeery likely wont handle 1080p video decoding of h264, and the CPU most likely not as well. But hey, give it a try and see.
As for the PI: The PI can handle it because it has a hardware decoder for h264; mpeg and VC1, which this thinclient is verly likely missing (didn't check the spec of the Radeon 700).
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In that case, go for Puppy Linux. Boots from USB into RAM, but is still enduser friendly.
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Yeah, it looks like the Radeon 700 isn't supported in the proprietary driver any more and it might not work with the open source driver to push 1080 video at a good frame rate. That said, I'd love to hear how it works if you try it anyway. It's not like it would hurt anything to try. I'd personally recommend trying both openelec and kodibuntu on a usb thumb-drive. Let us know how it turn out if you do.
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The ENTIRE Radeon X700 series does not support DXVA or any other form of hardware accelerated video decoding and a 1ghz single core CPU won't be nearly enough to do software decoding of 1080p H264.
Memory well I could bang that up to 2gb, we'll see. I can see a MK2 project in the pipeline at this rate though!
