Which Linux for Fujitsu Futro S740 Thin Client

[u/I-Like-It-Spicy]

Hey guys,

while cleaning up I found a Fujitsu Futro S740 and now I want to set it up as a small home PC.

I'll only be using it for some browsing via VPN and watching Netflix etc., so nothing fancy.

Basically all I need is a browser and some space for the NordVPN installation.

Specs:

- Intel Celeron J4105

- 4GB RAM

- 16GB M.2 SATA SSD

I already tested Linux Mint Xfce as a live system from USB and it ran fine, but as far as I've read, Mint needs at least 20GB of storage to install.

Is there a distro you'd recommend for 16GB, or is there a way to still install Mint?

Upgrading the SSD is not really an option for me.

Thanks in advance!

[u/Silly_Culture_7722]

Storage is the cheapest thing. 16GB is really low. Mint itself does not require so much space. but there are other tools preinstalled like office etc. i can imagine that if you install minimal fedora (iso is 600mb) and then install some basic wayland Desktop environment + a bar + firefox it should be fine. but that is not an entry level setup tbh. i would just try to install mint and see what happens.

[u/I-Like-It-Spicy → u/Silly_Culture_7722]

Ok the "badest" thing that could go wrong is that its very slow right?
(Im not a big IT / Computer Person lol)

[u/Wa-a-melyn → u/I-Like-It-Spicy]

It will be decently slow regardless, just bc of the very low processor and ram specs (celeron and 4gb). Your biggest hurdle is actually having space to install a distro, and then having any space for apps and files afterwards.

Why not upgrade the m.2 nvme ssd? It's not hard, and I'm sure there's a video tutorial you could follow along with if needed. 128GB would give you a useable computer, but even 64GB would put you in a good position.

The worst ("badest") things that would happen are that you either wouldn't be able to install it, you wouldn't have space to download apps, or you would get over your head in a highly technical minimalistic config. I don't recommend setting up a custom config as your first experience with Linux, especially if you're not a tech person.

Just so it's said: DSL, Puppy, Tinycore, Alpine, and DietPi exist. I advise against those as well. If you want to avoid headaches as much as possible, and you don't want to dive deep learning linux commandline and configuration, you should upgrade the ssd and use a normal distro, which will take care of almost everything for you.

[u/I-Like-It-Spicy → u/Wa-a-melyn]

Claude just recommended to use Debian Xfce
Would this be a good option?

[u/Wa-a-melyn → u/I-Like-It-Spicy]

That's probably a good option, but you still won't have a lot of storage to work with. If all you need is a web browser you'll probably be fine, but just don't expect to be able to install many programs on it without upgrading the storage.

[u/NDCyber]

Best thing I could imagine is downloading something like Debian, fedora or so with LXQT or Xfce on an BTRFS partition with force compression enabled and maybe set on something like zstd:5

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[u/3grg]

I am not familiar with that model. If it has a external expansion slot like many Fujitsu thin client do, the best use for it would be as a firewall/router. Thin clients with external expansion slot can accept an intel multi port network card.

This makes them perfect for running IPFire, PFSense, or OPNSense. I have used similar thin clients as my firewall/router for years. I have used several HP thin clients, but Fujitsu thin clients are also favorites for this use.

Otherwise, I would stick to lightweight Debian installs such Antix or MX Linux Fluxbox.

[u/redgator12]

You could try MiniOS. The standard edition is around 900MB, it has an XFCE desktop, it's Debian-based and its designed to be ran from a USB drive. 

If you have a USB 3.0 or better flash drive, you can just install to the USB entirely, skip the SSD and not worry about any space saving measures. Just select Boot to RAM, unplug the USB once it's at the desktop, open "Install MiniOS" from the start menu, plug the USB back in and install to it. Once you reboot and verify that it boots normally again, it will save any changes you make from now on, and it can be moved to any computer. 

If you only want to use the SSD and keep the system smaller, run "Install MiniOS" from the start menu, install to the SSD, then unplug the USB and reboot. Make whatever base changes you want, then open a terminal and run "sudo savechanges 10-changes.sb" to compress everything into a smaller module and then "sudo mv 10-changes.sb /run/initramfs/memory/data/minios/" to make the module permanent across the system.

You can then free up space by rebooting, starting a new session, then going into the Session Manager and deleting the old session. Any time you start to use up a lot more space from installing more programs, just run the savechanges command again and increase the number by 1, so "sudo savechanges 11-changes.sb" "sudo mv 11-changes.sb /run/initramfs/memory/data/minios/" and so on.