Birdfox117

• Raspberry Pi 4 Citrix Client
• Raspberry Pi 4 Citrix Client Downloads
• Raspberry Pi 4 Thin Client
• Raspberry Pi 4 Citrix Workspace

Raspberry Pi 4 Thin Client 4K & 1080p Dual Screen. If playback doesn't begin shortly, try restarting your device. This is a step-by-step how to on creating a Raspberry Pi 4 dual screen thin client. The Pi will be set up in a Kiosk mode, only able to access Citrix Reciever. Dual Monitor Thin Client with RPI 4 - Citrix Forum. If nothing happens, download GitHub Desktop and try again. Instructions for configuring a Raspberry Pi 4 (2GB) to work with the Citrix ICA client (icaclient20.04.0.21armhf.deb). JINKSTO: most of my repo is private because things that I say don't represent the views of my employer.

On older systems or the Raspberry Pi you may find a browser solely for the purpose of logging in uses too many resources, though. Citrix Workspace App. In most cases a connection of type Citrix Workspace App and a Citrix URL as connection target are enough to successfully run a Citrix client. Situation: Hardware: Raspberry Pi 4B with 4GB Ram, Two Samsung FullHD 24 Monitors, connected via HDMI Software: Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster); Citrix Workspace app 1910 for Linux The Citrix Workspace Linux App does start The Citrix Workspace Linux App does fullscreen on one monitor only.

Australia’s ThinLinX Pty Ltd has been developing Thin Client and IoT Hardware & Software for over 17 years. More recently we have transitioned to TLXOS Software solutions which allows us to concentrate on developing the best value Thin Client, Digital Signage and IoT Gateway Software for existing high volume hardware such as Raspberry Pi’s, Intel and AMD based Small Form Factor devices and Re-Purpose PC’s and Laptops

TLXOS is a small down loadable custom Linux based Operating System with minimal hardware requirements needing less than 1GB of RAM and less than 2GB of storage to deliver high performance Desktops using Citrix HDX, VMware Horizon Blast and Microsoft RDP / RemoteFX.

Start your trial today by clicking on the Download Tab above, select a Download Mirror, click on the Version of TLXOS that you want to Trial. You should also download the ThinLinX Management Software (TMS) which is Free when used with any version of TLXOS. Many Raspberry Pi’s are shipped with a SD Card already installed with the NOOBS boot loader, TLXOS installation is now also available via the NOOBS boot loader. Just boot your RPi’s while tapping the Shift Key, select TLXOS from the OS List, click on install.

During the installation the TLXOS installer automatically Registers the 30 Day Free Trial with the ThinLinX License Server, you must be connected to the Internet with a DHCP Server on the local Network for the Free Trial to successfully Register your device.

See YouTube demo below explaining how to create a SD Card version of TLXOS for the Raspberry Pi using the ThinLinX SD Card solution

Creating a TLXOS USB Stick installer which is used for Intel based devices and Re-Purpose PC or Laptops is identical to the above demo with the only difference being that a different TLXOS installer image is downloaded and then the image is written to a USB Stick instead of an SD Card

ThinLinX Management Software (TMS) is a very powerful, scalable Management Console that allows TLXOS devices located anywhere in the World to be configured, updated via Hotfixes, or have complete Firmware upgrades installed from one central location. TMS consists of a TLXOS client side component and TMS itself, the latest TLXOS client side component is always integrated in each TLXOS release, this may be updated from time to time via a TMS client upgrade. TMS is available for Windows and Linux, TMS is also integrated into TLXADM which is a Free Virtual Appliance used for administration and Desktop Shadowing

ThinLinX has recently released a new much improved version 8.2.3 of TMS which has a corresponding 8.2.2 TLXOS client side which is already integrated into the current TLXOS 4.9.3 release. This allows access to all the new features of TMS 8.2.3

Download TLXOS for a 30 day Free trial, which is available now for the Raspberry Pi Zero, RPi1, RPi2, RPi3, RPi3A+, RPi3B+, the Dual Screen RPi 4, RPi 400, RPi Compute Module 3, RPi Compute Module 4, Intel and AMD Small Form Factor devices such as the Intel NUC, Intel Compute Sticks, Gigabyte Brix, Re-Purpose PC or Laptop market

ThinLinX will be releasing TLXOS_RockPi in 2021 which supports the very popular Rock Pi 4

Between our Major releases such as above, Citrix and VMware often release updated versions of Citrix Receiver and VMware Horizon Client. ThinLinX creates updates which we call Hotfixes that allow our customers to install the latest Citrix Receiver, VMware Horizon clients, RDP clients and additional features from time to time.

Dual screen capability is available via TLXOS for the new Raspberry Pi 4, RPi 400, Intel and AMD Small Form Factor Devices and our x86 Re-Purpose PC & Laptop solution.

One or Thousands of Thin Clients / Digital Signage / IoT devices can be managed and updated from one central location using the ThinLinX Management Software (TMS) which is available at no cost with any TLXOS License. All configuration information is stored locally on each Thin Client, and also in the TMS custom built in Database, the Thin Clients are managed via a secure SSL connection between the client and the PC running TMS. Thin Clients can be configured with the IP Address or Hostname of the system running TMS before shipping to any location in the World. The port number used for the SSL connection is also configurable allowing the Thin Clients to be visible and managed via TMS even when situated behind multiple Firewalls.

TLXOS supports High Performance on Single, Dual or Triple Displays. A new addition to TLXOS 4.9.3 is a local Desktop mode and Microsoft Teams for Linux which is a Video Conferencing App. Protocols supported include Citrix HDX, RemoteFX 8.1, RDP, VMWare View, XRDP, VNC, X11, Redhat Spice, NoMachine NX, Chromium local Web Browser, Telnet, TN5250 and TN3270 (Mainframe), IoT Gateway, Media Player, Digital Signage Mode which can be Single, Dual or Triple Screen Digital Signage. The Signage features include play Images and Videos from local storage, while the HTML5 Kiosk Mode Web Browser can display local or remote content including PDF files. Images, Videos and Web content may be displayed in any order on any of the connected displays. The content can be updated remotely using the ThinLinx Management Software (TMS) or locally on the device using a USB stick to sync files to local storage

• Citrix Rasberry Pi 2 demo showing high HDX performance

• Citrix Synergy Demo TLXOS running on the NUC 60fps HDX performance

• Did I really see a $165 thin client doing 55fps with Borderlands 2 with HDX 3D Pro Citrix XenDesktop?

Raspberry Pi 4 Citrix Client

• ThinLinX Quick Start User Guide

• ThinLinX Management Software User Guide

• TLXOS User Guide

• FAQ

TLXOS Small Form Factor is the result of many years R&D by ThinLinX, we have created a powerful Operating System that is optimized for the Intel & AMD range. TLXOS also supports Intel NUC clones, Compute Sticks and Intel Inside variations such as the Gigabyte Brix.

The lastest Intel NUC’s now have SD, SDHC, SDXC Card or Micro SD Card slots, no need to fit a hard disk drive, just buy a low cost SD Card and boot from SD. Use the TLXOS USB stick installer to write the TLXOS image to the SD Card inserted into a single NUC or use the built in TLXOS PXE Boot Server running on a single NUC to program TLXOS to multiple NUC’s fitted with SD Cards by PXE booting the NUC’s. Mass installs of TLXOS can be carried out simultaneously to SD Card or other storage by using a Network switch. A 24 Port switch would allow 22 simultaneous installs of TLXOS to the NUC storage. A new Diskless boot mode has also been integrated into TLXOS, this allows devices to be booted using PXE boot with NO storage whatsoever fitted to the devices. This allows for significant hardware cost reductions in Schools, Universities, Call Centers etc

TLXOS RPi is a variation of TLXOS for the Raspberry Pi 2, 3, 4 & new 400 which supports Citrix HDX & VMware Horizon Blast Extreme decode up to 60fps @ 1080p resolution. RemoteFX 8.1 H.264 decode coming soon, although TLXOS supports the RPi 2, 3, 4 & new 400 Models, we recommend the new Dual Screen RPi400 or RPi4 for Thin Client usage. Many different Remote Desktop connection protocols are supported. Also integrated is a low cost Digital Signage mode and Microsoft Teams for Video Conferencing

Raspberry Pi 4 Citrix Client Downloads

To install TLXOS on your SD Card use either the new RPi -Imager available from the Rpi Website, our TLXOS .exe installer available from the ThinLinX Website or boot the RPi using the standard NOOBS bootloader while tapping the Shift Key, select TLXOS, click on Install to write the image to your MicroSD Card. After you write the image to a Micro SDCard, insert it into the RPi, boot up, it will partition and configure the card, automatically License the 30 Day Free Trial (The Rpi must be on a Network connected to the Internet for the 30 Day Free trial to be successful) You can License TLXOS either during the trial or after the Trial. Use TMS to License the Rpi, TMS -> Device -> Update -> Update License, enter the email address and password that you provided when you purchased a TLXOS RPi License at the ThinLinX online Store, select “Paid License” in License Type and “Install/Reinstall” in License Action, you will see Product Licensed appear. If you License after the trial has expired you must then use TMS -> Device -> Commands -> “Enter/Exit Maintenance mode”, the RPi will reboot ready to use again.

In working with my customers over the years, end point management is something most struggle with to this day. Some choose to still provide their end users with fat clients, having to figure out how to manage the operating system and applications while making sure the device is secure. This tends to be a daunting challenge both from an operational and financial perspective. Others choose to leverage thin clients when possible but struggle in deciding what the right device is from a price and functionality pespective. A lot of times, they spend upwards of $500 on these thin clients, which still run a Windows Embedded OS that still needs to be managed and in some ways defeats the purpose of a thin client. While this is not true in every case, I would say that the end point management dillema is one of the biggest factors in virtualization initiatives stalling at my enterprise customers.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been taking a closer look at the Rapsberry Pi. For those of you not familiar with the Raspberry Pi, I would highly recommend you check this out. While the use cases for the Pi are immense, what peaked my curiosity were recent blogs by Martin Rowan and Trond Eirik Haavarstein around how they leveraged the Pi as a thin client replacement for Citrix workloads.

Now before we go further, its important to understand why this was interest to me. First off, the device can be made highly secure by running stripped down Linux OS. Secondly, a Raspberry Pi 2 costs roughly $35. Tack on a case and adequate storage, the device is still under $50. So if there was a way to effectively deliver Citrix workloads leveraging this device, this would be the cheapest thin client out there! Not to mention a simple support and maintenance strategy, GET A NEW ONE! 🙂

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”6″ gal_title=”RPI”]

I decided to get myself a Raspberry Pi 2 and give it a test run. I ordered the Vilros Raspberry Pi 2 Complete Starter Kit off of Amazon for around $55 (its around $70 now but price fluctuates). I would highly recommend going for a starter kit, either the one I got or the even more popular Canakit as these include everything you’ll need including wi fi adapter, case, hdmi cable, heat sinks, storage, power adapter etc. I also ordered a couple of additional micro SD cards. I wanted to have different OS builds on each of the cards, making it easy for me to showcase different solutions by just switching the micro SD cards on the Pi.

I looked at ThinLinx, Raspian Jessie and the Raspberry Pi Thin Client Project as potential options, but decided to start with ThinLinx and Raspbian Jessie. Before you get started, I highly recommend you read the this blog by Eric on Running Citrix workloads on ThinLinx and this blog by Martin Rowan on configuring and optimizing Citrix Receiver on Raspbian Jessie.

Raspberry Pi 4 Thin Client

Approach 1: ThinLinx

Lets start with the ThinLinx build. ThinLinx OS (TLXOS) helps make effective thin clients out of old PC’s, Intel Compute Stick, Intel NUC and Raspberry Pi. TLXOS supports various protocols including Citrix HDX, RemoteFX 8.1, RDP. Intel showcased their NUC devices running ThinLinx at Citrix Summit this year. Check out the video. In addition Rachel Berry wrote an excellent blog about how Citrix leveraged Intel NUCs running ThinLinx for our Demos and Labs at Citrix Synergy 2015.

The process is as follows:

• Go to this website and download the TLXOS Installer for Raspberry Pi.
• Connect your micro SD card to your PC and run the TLXOS installer. This will format your micro SD card and copy the TLXOS image on the card.
• From the same website mentioned above, download the ThinLinx Management Software (TMS) and install the software on a windows test machine. This is fairly lightweight software and can run on a VM as well.
• Insert the micro SD card with TLXOS into the Raspberry PI and start it up.
• Run the TMS app on your PC, which will detect the PI running TLXOS. You can configure the PI running through the management software.
• In my case, I used TMS to make sure Citrix HDX is selected under the “Protocol” section. You could also choose “Web” and run in Kiosk mode if you’d like user to connect in that manner. You can also speficy a name for the device, upgrade software on the device, push SSL certs (required if your backend resources are running internal certs) etc.
• On the PI, specify the Native Receiver URL. You will then be prompted for your credentials. Once thats set, you are good to go! You should see your apps and desktops, which you can then launch.

Video showcasing Citrix on a Raspberry Pi 2 running TLXOS

My Thoughts on the ThinLinx Option.

ThinLinx adds about $10 to the cost of the solution, bringing it to $69 in my case. However that is still a lot cheaper than your main stream thin clients. In addition, you get complete management capabilities which is absolutely necessary in an Enterprise environment. TLXOS was extremely easy to get going and the functionality was superb both for regular compute and for multimedia. The Citrix HDX protocol on TLXOS supports H264 decode upto 30 fps at 1080p resolution. There was no tinkering to get receiver to work. It just worked! I did notice some artifacts with the mouse cursor (as you might notice in the video) but not all the time. Overall I was very pleased with the simplicity of the solution and the overall performance of Citrix Workloads on TLXOS.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”3″ gal_title=”TLXOS”]

Approach 2: Raspbian Jessie

Raspbian OS is based off of Debian Linux. Jessie is the current version. There are two versions available for the PI – a full desktop image and a minimal image. I went with the full image for my tests. The Raspbian Jessie solution that I tested was unmanaged, unlike ThinLinx. So I had to install the OS, install receiver, tweak parameters to optimize performance etc. Nonetheless, the end result was a great performing thin client. I followed Martin Rowan’s blog for the various tweaks. I will try and outline them once again but wanted to call out that the tweaks were from his blog. So here are the steps:

• Download the Raspbian Jessie full desktop image from this link.
• Download Win32DiskImager and install on your system
• Extract the Raspbian Jessie Image from the zip file
• Connect your micro SD card to your PC
• Run Win32DiskImager and use the extracted image as your source and the micro SD as your destination. This will format and copy the Raspian Jessie image on the SD card.
• At this point, remove the SD card from your PC and plug it into the Pi and boot the Pi.
• Run the following optimization commands in Raspbian Jessie. Once again, read Martin’s blog for more details.
  • Expand Filesystem
    • Run sudo raspi-config and select option “1 Expand Filesystem“. Reboot the Pi.
  • Run sudo raspi-config and select option “4 Wait for Network at Boot“, then select the option for “Slow Wait for network connection before completing boot“.
• Install Citrix Receiver for ARM
  • Download Citrix Receiver for ARM (ARMHF) from the following link (under Debian packages)
  • Also download the USB Support package (ARMHF)
  • Install the Receiver: sudo gdebi icaclient_13.2.0.322243_armhf.deb
  • Install the USB Support package:sudo gdebi ctxusb_2.5.322243_armhf.deb
  • Further Optimizations (Optional)
    • Increase Frame Buffer – Section 2.1 in Martin’s blog
    • Switch to using libjpeg62-turbo – Section 2.2 in Martin’s blog
    • Disable H264 Graphics – Section 2.3 in Martin’s blog
    • Disable Mulimedia (HDX Mediastream redirection) – Section 2.4 on Martin’s blog.
    • Overclock your Pi – Run raspi-config to overclock your Pi and get some additional juice.
  • Start Receiver and specify URL to connect to your Citrix Storefront server. At this point you will be prompted for credentials.
  • Now you will have access to your desktops and apps.
• I did run into an issue with Audio being routed over HDMI and not the headphone jack. To switch this back to the headphone jack, follow the instructions here

Video showcasing Citrix on a Raspberry Pi 2 running Raspian Jessie

Thoughts on Raspbian Jessie

My experience so far with Raspbian Jessie has been good. A little more tweaking and hacking as compared to ThinLinx, which worked out of the box. You get to install the latest receiver though. General performance for productivity apps was great and on par with ThinLinx. The boot was a lot faster than ThinLinx (<10 seconds).

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”4″ gal_title=”JESSIE”]

Is the Rasperry Pi a good solution for all use cases at the moment? Probably not. Does it fit a majority of the use cases? I would say so based on the testing so far. There are definitely some gaps, like having a power button perhaps (hopefully in Raspberry Pi 3), multi montor support to name a couple. Another major requirement for most organizations out there is Unified Communications, and in most cases, its Skype For Business. Citrix has excelled in supporting Lync and now Skype for Business in a virtualized environment while offering a native-like user experience with out of band peer to peer communication as far as voice and video traffic goes. Watch this video which compares the native vs optimized user experience side by side. One of the pieces that makes this possible is the Real Time Media Engine (RTME) which is installed on the client. Today, there is no RTME client for the ARM processor. You can still support Sype but all the processing will occur on the backend servers. I am sure an ARM based RTME client is on the list of good to have’s for Citrix and its probably just a matter of time, especially with the rapid popularity of ARM based devices like the Pi and Intel Compute Sticks. Hoping my friend and fellow citrite Scott Lane will work some magic to make this happen 🙂 Read this blog by Chris Fleck on why he believes the Raspberry Pi could totally disrupt the PC industry. I tend to agree with Chris.

I will soon be testing the Raspberry Pi Thin Client Project, specifically the 1.99 release which has Citrix Receiver 13.3 bundled in. I hope to have a follow up blog on this. On the fun side, I plan to build an Arcade Machine for my kids based on the Pi and perhaps even a media center, although I really love my Roku 🙂 Check out some of the fun projects out there based on the Pi. As always I look forward to everyone’s feedback and do comment if you have ideas on future blog topics.

More soon..

Raspberry Pi 4 Citrix Workspace

George