[rescue] What is an XTerminal 1?

[Sheldon T. Hall]

"Paul Phillips" <paul at partitura.com> said ...

> The noise level in my home office is beginning to drive me nuts.  Five
> computers with fans going are just too much.

I feel your pain.

> I'd like to move the two Suns into another room.  I can always administer
> them over ssh using the command line.  However, it would be nice to be
able
> to get access to CDE.
>
> Is this what the XTerminal will do?

Yeppers.

> Does it have a fan it it? (I'm going for LESS noise...)

Some do, some don't.  I think all the Sun units were just rebadged
SPARCstations of one sort or another, and have fans.  Other makes and models
of Xterminals may or may not have fans.  My HP 700/rx has a fan, but it's
inside and thus pretty quiet.

> How does it connect to the remote host?

Ethernet.

> Does it have a video card?

Yep.  The Sun Xterminals want Sun monitors, the HP units want SVGA, etc.

I think the secret lick for a small, quiet Xterminal is a modest laptop
Windows PC with Cygwin/XFree86.  Something like P-II 300 or so will do.  Use
an external keyboard and mouse.  No fan, almost no heat, takes up minimal
room.  The main drawback is the smaller screen, compared to a 20" monitor on
a "real" Xterm.  If your budget can stand it, get a wireless base station
($150, maybe) and a wireless card for the laptop ($50 or so) and your
"office" can be anywhere in the house.  Around here, you can buy an older
laptop for less than an SVGA LCD screen.

-Shel