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The rage 128 (16mb) seems to work acceptably with UI2. It's a bit choppy when first opening the menu, but smooths out. I'm guessing the 32mb version of the card would help a bit, as would more CPU.

I did also try UI3 with my 7200gs (128mb) , and while it DID work, it was also choppy. CPU is a d820 Pentium @ 2.8ghz, 2gb ddr2, so I'm thinking that the 7200 is barely powerful enough to run the alpha blending.

I'll test the alpha blending today or tomorrow.

Since my core is a hybrid, it's running an Nvidia 7200GS with UI2. No problems at all so far! I setup a diskless client, a p4 1.6ghz with 512mb ram, and an ATI Rage 128, and it's also running UI2 with no config. Plug in and go!

It's a bit choppy with the overlay up, but settles down after a few seconds. So, this is good news, as I have 9 of these rage 128's sitting around.

I second that.. I was able to connect a diskless compaq presario 710ca laptop through pxe, and the setup was automatic.  Performance wasnt very good (duron 1.2ghz, 256mb ram) but it did work, and I was able to stream a dvd to it.

Well, using UI1 (no overlay), I was able to get the onboard video to work on my Compaq Presario 710ca. It's an S3 Twister "K" card, using 16mb of system memory.

I havent had a chance yet to test the 16mb or 32mb ATI Rage 128's, but they "supposedly" support Alpha Blending, according to ATI's website.

Supposedly any card which can support alpha-blending will work. I've got a few ATI cards here that do support it, and I'll be testing them. It just seems that ATI's support within *ubuntu is pretty poor.

Some of the Intel cards support alpha blending, including the 745 and 915s.

My core is running an ATI FireGL card (only spare pci-x card I had available.. I know it's overkill), and I'm running UI1 (no overlay option) with it.  I tried UI2, but got an OpenGL initialization error.  I think the Nvidia cards are your best bet.. I've seen a few 6200's for around $40.

I just picked up a 500gb sata hdd for $179, and that's the first purchase I've made for this system. All the rest of the stuff was already mine, so I still have $821 left to build the rest.  Next, TV tuner and a gyro mouse.

-Luke

I've managed to use the laptop successfully as a thin client with ZERO configuration. There is some tweaking to do, but it works perfectly well, even streaming a DVD from the Core.

Core system is a Dell Precision 370 with 2gb ram, 80gb hdd, dvd drive, and dual gigabit nics. Also, zero configuration.

The quick release DVD was a quick and painless install, and the thin clients are beyond simple. Set it to PXE boot, and that's it. Core will automatically detect the "orbiter", and ask a few quick and easy questions (what room is this device in? What do you want it to do?).

I'll be continuing to experiment with this setup, building a whole home solution for under $1000.

-Luke122

I would say that dual video cards is definitely a waste in this system, but I guess thats just my opinion.

I'd like to know this also.. I've got a Compaq presario 710ca laptop that is stripped right down to a board, cpu, ram, and power supply that I will be using as my first thin client.

It's an AMD Duron 1.2ghz proc with 256mb ram.  Onboard audio and tv out, pxe bootable nic (I checked already), and a usb bluetooth dongle ready to go.

Anyone have any thoughts on this as a suitable thin client config? I'll be testing as soon as the download is complete, but I figured I'd ask first.

Thanks for any info that anyone is able to give.