Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry
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If you want to go the ChromeOS route, you are looking at the CXI3 from Acer as the most likely candidate.
For 8GB of RAM, and something faster than a Celeron, you are looking at $449. That's $44 over the cost of a white box Linux desktop with more power, a lot more power (A10 and 16GB and 120GB SSD.)
You might save as much as $100 per machine at initial purchase time, plus $50/year for management costs per machine.
So over say five years, a Linux desktop might save you around $350 per machine.
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Intel NUC is a good choice for either a Windows or Linux system.
They are usually barebones so they only thing you need to do is to put it an SSD (M2 or 3.5") and memory. I would almost lie if I say it takes 5 minutes to do it. Intel made them very easy to disassemble and put stuff in.
$285 for an i3-8109U cpu. Add $50 for 8GB RAM and $35 for a 120GB M2 drive (Kingston). That puts the total at $375.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16856102213
If you want a Windows pro license that would be an additional $150 or so. So a total of $525.Or you could just buy one ready to go.
Like this Intel NUC i3/4GB/128GB with Windows 10 Pro for $399:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAA0S8AE9378If you just need a quad core celeron you could get a complete system with windows 10 pro for $279:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAA0S7MX2040They're pretty small and easily placed.
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NUC are good and well known / supported.
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Going back to this topic.
Finally had a moment to take an old desktop, install Fedora 29 stock on it, run updates and installed remmina. It now connects to our ERP system just fine. Opened Firefox to O365 web portal for email and Excel Online. Boss was impressed. Informed him that, instead of Group Policy, we would place these types of machines in an untrusted zone with just access to the Internet and open ports to the Salt Stack master and the ERP system between the trusted and untrusted zones. Boss still impressed.
He asked about comparison between Fedora Linux management and Google Chromebook management. Where SaltStack is free, we would have to pay for Google Enterprise administration on an annual basis.
Not there yet, but a step in the right direction.
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@NerdyDad sounds like good progress.
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And now I have been given the green light to build a fedora 29 salt stack server. Testing only, not production yet.
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@NerdyDad said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
And now I have been given the green light to build a fedora 29 salt stack server. Testing only, not production yet.
Good steps!
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Was working on this and working in state files (SLS). I can remotely install Remmina on the minions, but is it possible to configure the RDP configurations within remmina? For example, some needs RDP to the ERP system, while others may need RDP to one-off servers once in a while. Is there a way for me to configure these RDP connections within the sls file?
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@NerdyDad said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
Was working on this and working in state files (SLS). I can remotely install Remmina on the minions, but is it possible to configure the RDP configurations within remmina? For example, some needs RDP to the ERP system, while others may need RDP to one-off servers once in a while. Is there a way for me to configure these RDP connections within the sls file?
You should be able to supply a config file into the reminna directory, yes.
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@NerdyDad said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
Was working on this and working in state files (SLS). I can remotely install Remmina on the minions, but is it possible to configure the RDP configurations within remmina? For example, some needs RDP to the ERP system, while others may need RDP to one-off servers once in a while. Is there a way for me to configure these RDP connections within the sls file?
You can push files to minions, so save the config, and have that pushed out to the minions. Getting it in the right place is the hardest part.
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https://github.com/FreeRDP/Remmina/wiki/Remmina-Usage-FAQ
The numero uno is the connections and preferences.
So you can
sedthe changes in or just copy a over what is there. -
@DustinB3403 said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
@NerdyDad said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
Was working on this and working in state files (SLS). I can remotely install Remmina on the minions, but is it possible to configure the RDP configurations within remmina? For example, some needs RDP to the ERP system, while others may need RDP to one-off servers once in a while. Is there a way for me to configure these RDP connections within the sls file?
You should be able to supply a config file into the reminna directory, yes.
@travisdh1 said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
@NerdyDad said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
Was working on this and working in state files (SLS). I can remotely install Remmina on the minions, but is it possible to configure the RDP configurations within remmina? For example, some needs RDP to the ERP system, while others may need RDP to one-off servers once in a while. Is there a way for me to configure these RDP connections within the sls file?
You can push files to minions, so save the config, and have that pushed out to the minions. Getting it in the right place is the hardest part.
According to Remmina's FAQ here, they store their configs in different places. Remmina's main configuration files are stored in
$HOME/.config/remmina/asremmina.pref. Connections are stored individually under$HOME/.local/share/remminaasXXXXXXXXXXXXX.remmina. If I can rename these files to be more SysAdmin friendly, then it would be easy to know who gets what connection.After that, it is just a matter of setting up a local file server for IT to serve out config files and other stuff.
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@NerdyDad If you create an individual connection and call it "User-RDP-1"
Does it get that name in
$HOME/.local/share/remmina/User-RDP-1.remmina? -
@DustinB3403 said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
@NerdyDad If you create an individual connection and call it "User-RDP-1"
Does it get that name in
$HOME/.local/share/remmina/User-RDP-1.remmina?It's bee a while since I looked, but I don't think so. Would be VERY happy to be proven wrong!
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@travisdh1 I can probably check this when I get home.
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Yeah the file names are random
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You can rename the files obviously, but you can't import them if you change the name it seems.
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@DustinB3403 said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
You can rename the files obviously, but you can't import them if you change the name it seems.
actually...maybe I cant import because it's already listed.
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Yeah so the import / export seems to need some work as it allows you to "export" something but you can't import it. At least it doesn't seem that way.
But you can rename the connections. And they'll show up with that name in the list at the bottom of the connection screen.
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@DustinB3403 said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
@DustinB3403 said in Chromebox for Clerks and Data Entry:
You can rename the files obviously, but you can't import them if you change the name it seems.
actually...maybe I cant import because it's already listed.
Copy it and change the name, then reload Remmina. You'll now see a copy of the same thing. Go back and delete the original in the file system and reload Remmina again. Original disappears.
Tells me that one should be able to simply dump the connection configs on the minions, tighten down the permission to read only for the user and let them operate.
