So, a buddy of mine dropped off a box of 18 Wyse 3040 & 5010 thin clients. I believe they all run W10 embedded, but doing some research, I think I can also run a lightweight Linux OS like maybe Tiny Core. The 5010 can run SuSE Linux Desktop 11, ThinOS, or ThinOS PCOIP acording to Dell.
So, the burning question I have today is ‘If you were gifted a box of 18 Wyse 3040 & 5010 thin clients, what would you do with them’? I want something I can incorporate into my already established homelab.
Inundate me with ideas!
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I had 15 of the 2013-era 5010 thin clients. Most of them have had their SSDs and RAM upgraded.
They’ve worn many hats since I’ve had them, but some of their uses and proposed uses were:
- I did a 15 node Docker Swarm setup and used that to both run some of my applications as well as learn how to do horizontal scaling.
- After I tore down the Docker Swarm cluster, I set them up as diskless workstations to both learn how to do that and used them at a local event as web kiosks (basically just to have a bunch of stations people could use to fill out web based forms).
- One of them was my router for a good while. Only replaced it in that role when I got symmetric gigabit fiber. Before that, I used VLANs to to run LAN and WAN over its single ethernet port since I had asymmetric 500 Mbps and never saturated the port.
- Run small/lightweight applications in highly-available pairs/clusters
- Use them to practice clustered services (Multi-master Galera/MariaDB, multi-master LDAP, CouchDB, etc)
- Use them as Snapcast clients in each room
- Add wireless cards, install OpenWRT, and make powerful access points for each room (can combine with the above and also be a Snapcast client)
- Set them up as VPN tunnel endpoints, give them out to friends, and have a private network
Of the 15, I think I’m only actively using 4 nowadays. One is my MPD+Snapcast server, one is running HomeAssistant, ,the third is my backup LDAP server, and one runs my email server (really). The rest I just spin up as needed for various projects; I downsized my homelab and don’t have a lot of spare capacity for dev/test VMs these days, so these work great in place of that.
Most of them have had their SSDs and RAM upgraded.
Their RAM has been upgraded, but these were office equipment, so sans SSD, but that’s not a big hurdle.
Ooooo…Docker Swarm. That sounds intriguing. Never had one. Snapcast sounds cool too.
'presh
The only reason I gave up on Docker Swarm was that it seemed pretty dead-end as far as being useful outside the homelab. At the time, it was still competing with Kubernetes, but Kube seems to have won out. I’m not even sure Docker CE even still has Swarm. It’s been a good while since I messed with it. It might be a “pro” feature nowadays.
Edit: Docker 28.5.2 still has Swarm.
Still, it was nice and a lot easier to use than Kubernetes once you wrapped your head around swarm networking.
I’ve yet to dip into Kubernetes or Incus yet. From what I have read, it is a bit overkill for a homelab application. Of course, that’s dependent on what you use your homelab for. That is not to say, I’ll never do Kubernetes or Incus, it’s just that I really haven’t plumbed the depths of Docker yet.
Yep, that’s why I haven’t messed with Kubernetes either; way overkill for a homelab and especially so since I downsized due to soaring electricity costs here.
I’d still like to learn Kubernetes tho, at the very least to have a working knowledge of the topic.
You could make the world’s worst computer cluster, that could be fun. I think there are several open source tools for doing clustering
The world’s worst computer cluster eh? LOL
Ooooo…pump the brakes. This looks very interesting. Bookmarked to read tonight with a bowl.
I’d sell them. They don’t really have enough resources to run anything on their own, and I don’t have enough people in my household to justify setting up a bunch of terminals.
Hmmmm…I might give away a couple, but these can be had on ebay for less than $50. Might not be worth all the hassle to sell them. I usually don’t sell the equipment my buddy gives me. IDK, that seems like a foul.
I mean, he probably gave them to you for free for the same reason.
Well, he and I struck up a friendship long ago. He works for a fairly large firm in the IT dept. He has a mind blowing lab at his house, but he knows I like toys, so when he gets his hands on something I might like or use, he makes a delivery. I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth as it were. @cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de came up with a good idea about the AllStar node.
These are mini PCs right? So you want something with a room full of humans or some type of local online service. Anyway, not a purely computer project.
Library terminals and game room come to mind, but neither are for installing at home.
I’ve got a bluetooth, mobile monitor. I was thinking of using one of the thin clients + the monitor to make a little bedside computer mainly for reading all my ‘read it later’ articles that I’ve stockpiled during the day. That’s basically what I use my laptop for, except that sucker gets a bit warm on my legs while I’m using it in bed.
That leaves you with 17 more of them though.
When I’m looking at thin clients for use in my systems, I look at a few different things:
- Max RAM capacity
- Max storage capacity (and method of expansion
- CPU capability
- Communication methods
It looks like the 5010s are the most interesting to start with. They seem to be expandable to 8GB of RAM. They seem to have a DOM plugged into a populated SATA port, so I’m thinking you might be able to use an extension cable to install a proper SATA SSD and have decent storage. The APU is AMD pre-ryzen which is horrible for most purposes but I’d say is quite interesting for homelab use. Get some memory and real storage in them, and they’re good enough to be basically fully powered servers for whatever you want. Being suck on USB 2.0 means you’re pretty limited in that front. With upgraded memory and storage, you’re basically looking at something you can integrate into a proxmox cluster easily.
The 3040s are a bigger challenge. Limited memory (2GB soldered), very limited storage (8 or 16GB), and no immediately apparent way to upgrade them. On the other hand, the USB 3.0 port on the front means you can use a USB SSD or HDD to increase storage. With such a device plugged in, the Intel Atom X4 quad-core isn’t a great CPU, but you can definitely do some limited fun things. As-is and without any mods, I’m thinking you could host game servers on these for older games without overtaxing them too much, or fun niche applications like gemini hosting or telnet.
I used a 3040 to run a vaultwarden install and a web server. I switched to something more powerful (more ram, more ssd, faster CPU) and added jellyfin, a file server, and some *arr apps. I still have the 3040, thinking about putting pihole on it.
This could be funny if you have a d event computer, specially for od games
room heater
Well, I already have a couple of those in the closet. I piped in a 500 cfm, inline exhaust fan to the exterior, and that seems to work nicely.
