The Cheapskate's Guide has a post about using thin client computers as general purpose computers. These things are designed to pretty much host a remote desktop session and are spread across numerous large enterprises. When they get too old to use they end up on eBay for under $80 (just search for "thin client", filter by Buy It Now & Australia Only then sort by price + postage first). Personally, I wouldn't bother with these thin clients with their gutless CPUs and opt for Dell, HP or Lenovo "micro" PCs. More RAM, proper SSD, proper CPU and more or less the same price. They use a bee's dick more electricity (perhaps 15W instead of 8W-10W when idle) but the micro PCs are just way more useful. They're better than a Raspberry Pi or some other single board computer too if all you're gonna run on it is Linux and shove it in a corner.
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