Using a Dell Optiplex fx160 with the Suse thin client pre-installed? Found a problem with SLED10 and rdesktop not connecting to a Server 2008 remote desktop connection? – Never fear, as we have had the same problem and our Linux Guru has investigated the best fix:

Along the way, we tried all sorts:

  • Updating the rdesktop on SLED to 1.6 . SLED – didn’t like this.
  • Installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which is a small OS which we though would fit nicely on the thin client’s 1GB of NVRAM – but we couldn’t rip out enough packages to get it small enough!

The solution: Ditch SLED. Its rdesktop doesn’t have the best resolution anyway. Install Debian LXde.

Here’s how!

Step One:

Download the following. You may find it easier to copy the second file to the USB stick from a Windows machine but you’ll need to use Linux or Mac for the first one;

Put blank USB stick in Linux computer and make sure it isn’t mounted – you’ll probably need to use mount and umount to get this sorted.
Use dmesg to see what disk was just inserted – line near the end will mention something like /dev/sdX. Type:

zcat boot.img.gz > /dev/sdX

Unplug the drive and re-insert (or put into a Windows PC). Then copy debian-504-i386-netinst.iso to it
Plug into thin and boot. F12 usually selects boot device.

Step Two:

When you create the user Use full name = user and username = user
Select expert install.
Mostly just accept the default by pressing enter, except:

United Kingdom for country
British English keyboard
Don’t start PC card services

The next bit is the only non-obvious part of the whole process, IMO. Use guided partitioning and let it choose two partitions. Then before committing to disk delete both partitions and create one primary partition of 1GB – no swap is needed.

  • Select default kernel (i686)
  • Select targeted initrd
  • Deselect all software tasks (Standard system is the only one selected by default)

You now have a bootable Debian in 371MB.

Step Three:

Login as root and do the following (# or $ is the command prompt, not something to type!)

# apt-get clean
# apt-get update
# apt-get install lxde

Just accept the warnings about swap space – you won’t be suspending to disk anyway.

# apt-get clean # apt-get install tsclient rdesktop # apt-get clean # reboot login as user

Open a terminal using the icon in the lower left of the screen $ xdg-desktop-icon install –novendor /usr/share/applications/tsclient.desktop . This will create you  a terminal server desktop icon!

Double-click the icon that appears in the top right.

Do the settings and save as CONNECT (or something similar). Don’t forget to set full-screen on the display tab. The TSClient window will go away.

(I had to reboot after this. Alt-F1 to get to command window followed by ctrl-alt-del should do it). You can check the connection using the quick connect button.

Step Four:

Now let’s configure the terminal server connection to autostart:

$ cd .config
$ mkdir autostart
$ nano -w autostart/tsclient.desktop

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Exec=tsclient -x /home/user/.tsclient/CONNECT.rdp

Step Five:

Autologin and autorun didn’t work in combination for me. I’d suggest not using autologin but if you want to try it do this:

LOGOUT

On the login screen choose Actions (bottom of screen).

Configure the login manager Authenticate with root password.

Click OK a few times. On security tab enable automatic login and set the user.

Close and reboot (from the Actions button)

Now you have a thin OS installed on your flash drive which will boot automatically and start a terminal server desktop session to your Server 2008 without any fuss.