The thin clients that I have seen lately have the following config, from lowest to highest (power and price):I'll make a server centric setup after LanPuppy, strong server & weak clients.
200 Mhz 128 MB SDRAM (fixed) - SiS SoC
400 Mhz Open Slot DDR RAM - VIA Eden
800 Mhz Open Slot DDR RAM - VIA C3
1Ghz Open Slot DDR (533 Mhz) RAM - VIA C7
All can use IDE flash for storage and booting.
Say, sunburnt, which one will be good enough for the server, and what size IDE flash as well as RAM will it need? Of course the first one (the eBox SoC) will be the best-qualified client.
And the "running as root" complaint by system admins - will it matter in that setup?