Shells.com Continues Work On Supporting More Linux Distros For This "Cloud Desktop"

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Shells.com Continues Work On Supporting More Linux Distros For This "Cloud Desktop"

Shells.com is a "personal cloud computer" that makes it possible to have a remote secure desktop from the browser whether it be running on a smartphone, tablet, smart TV, or other device. They have been supporting a number of different Linux distributions while more continue to be on the way...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Shells-More-Linux-Desktops

[skeevy420]

The prices in the article are the monthly rates if one buys a year's worth of service. It's 11.95 and 39.95 using their per-month pricing. The $4.95 plan has a 100 hour limit so it really is just a test drive. Yearly rate, their good plan is $443 a year for a quad core system with 160GB of storage and 8GB of ram.

To put that into perspective, for $220 last month I bought my Mom a 4c Skylake with 8GB ram, 160GB SSD, and Windows 10 Pro because she needed a cheap desktop...well, $320 including the monitor and wifi adapter. $320 for a real desktop or $443 for a virtual desktop, equal specs.

While interesting and pretty cool, I think it's a bit costly when comparing their costs to the used and low end markets for long-term budget-friendly business solutions and end-user desktop replacements.

[q2dg]

I you want a self-hosted free open-source alternative, you can check out IsardVDI: https://www.isardvdi.com/

[favonius]

Ummm, from their "Team" page. . . Mark Karpeles is the CTO? "Lil' Flip" is a partner? Is this a joke?

[scratchi]

I like this one: www.anonvdi.ca

Protip: if you want audio, select the Block Adult Content option and select the Ubuntu Media image

[favonius]

To put that into perspective, for $220 last month I bought my Mom a 4c Skylake with 8GB ram, 160GB SSD, and Windows 10 Pro because she needed a cheap desktop...well, $320 including the monitor and wifi adapter. $320 for a real desktop or $443 for a virtual desktop, equal specs.

While interesting and pretty cool, I think it's a bit costly when comparing their costs to the used and low end markets for long-term budget-friendly business solutions and end-user desktop replacements.

To be fair, thin client/remote desktop benefits are supposed to be about "overall cost", which includes cost of upgrades, system administration efforts, etc. They are supposed to be a lot less fuss. Whether any of the previous solutions actually delivered on that promise is debatable. And I'm certainly not sure about Shells. . .

[Hohlraum]

Any linux server (gcp, aws, linode, etc) can be turned into a desktop with Xvfb and x11vnc

[stiiixy]

The tech support onus is now on Company X, not You, skeevy420 😁

But I agreein this case, the price seems a little hard to swallow, and trying to convince some one who just bought/inherited (generally, a luddite) a PC that they now need to pay just as much YEARLY is a hard sell to La Famiglia, mates, et al.

Does anyone remember Sun Rays, or Sun's subsequent post-bubble efforts to bring remote desktop to the masses?