From: Ajay Shah (ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu)
Date: 06/10/93 

From: ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah)
Subject: X terminals: Suggestion for projects like SLS, MCC, etc.
Date: 10 Jun 1993 13:30:06 -0700

I can think of one interesting application for Linux: to turn cheap
low-end PC hardware into dedicated X terminals.

In this case we would not need a lot of the disk and memory consumption
of the base Linux system. E.g. support for SCSI in the kernel could
be junked.

We could probably get away with one or two floppy disks at runtime!
(I.e. we could turn a hard-disk-less PC into a X terminal).
In this case the kernel could use the smallest (minix?) of the
many file system implementations available.

Hmm, this sounds interesting. Suppose someone "normally" uses a MS-DOS
computer. He could just reboot through these two floppies to get a
X terminal.

The crucial thing, of course, would be "shrink wrapped" installation.
In this case, one can go much further than the current SLS in terms of
ease of installation, because there are much less complexity in the
installation of a X terminal than in installing a full OS.

Sounds like one could have a good commercial product here, since
there is already a small industry of software turning PCs into
dedicated X terminals.

        -ans. 

-- 
Ajay Shah, (213)749-8133, ajayshah@rcf.usc.edu