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I've run a windows/IIS/ms sql server web site of AWS free tier. The site ran fine with a few concurrent users but maxed out pretty quick so I wouldn't want more than a few users. Remote desktop (MS standard client) worked ok but was definitely slow and I wouldn't want to use it all day. With even the small instance (not free micro) RD is as smooth as my home system. I've shared audio, drives, and USB through RD with no problems.
I work with someone who runs a centos/apache/mysql site on the free tier. I've helped him admin the site but with ssh/command line so I don't know about virtual desktop on the micro. X works well with the small instance with xming server on windows and a standard centos running X. I haven't shared any audio, drives, or usb.
For my main job I use general purpose and compute optimized instances. The real power of vms like aws is that I can spin up as many instances as I want for dev and set production to spin up as many as it needs for the current users.
- Does anybody know if there are virtual desktop interface providers out there who are targeting the individual / SOHO market? (Free is REALLY good, cheap is acceptable) Not sure what you're looking for. Any standard X server will work - there are free ones for windows or you have it if you run Ubuntu. You can probably get your USB devices working but I don't know anything about them.
- With using one of these virtual machines, do you always use the provider's OS, or do you get what is virtually bare metal and install the OS yourself? With AWS you pick an AMI with the OS/environment you want. You can choose dozens of versions of Linux (SuSE, Centos, red hat, ubuntu), with/without web or db servers, and lots of other software. Or choose a base OS then install all the other services/apps you want.
- How is the performance of a virtual desktop with streaming audio / streaming video? If you try to do so with a older, lower powered thin client, does that even matter? Audio is fine with the micro instance. I wouldn't try video on micro. My job is in video - I can play video on my local machine from an NFS share on the AWS instance. I can also watch video on a X window on my local machine that's playing on the AWS instance. But that's with a good local machine and medium or larger AWS instance. Probably wouldn't work well on the free micros.
- On a related note (for the radio questions), how does the virtual interface work with client-side hardware. You note that I mentioned an USB / RS-232 radio interface and an external USB sound card interface that I need for radio purposes. Delay, jitter, etc., would make such a thing unusable. Almost certain to get delay/jitter with the micro instance.
- Finally, what do I need to watch out for that could end up biting me really badly in the wallet? I noted with, for example, AWS...if you went over their limits, they automatically shift you to their a la carte pricing for processors, network traffic, and storage. Of course, with AWS, after the first year of free, they start charging you (sort of reminds me a "3 free months of Showtime and cancel anytime after that" type of deal that cable companies do) Free tier is only for a year. It gets more expensive than running a local machine when it's not free. AWS is great when you need a variable number of machines and can pay for 10 machines an hour when you have high traffic but only 1 machine in off hours. It's also good in that you don't have to replace hardware yourself when something dies - just spin up a new instance. And it's great for development - I can use 1 or a dozen test machines at any time - I can have $100,000 of hardware for a few hours for $10/hour and I really don't know the difference between the machine in the room and those at AWS (UI feels the same with command line or X).
After all that, I'd say AWS is not what you want. Free tier won't handle your audio and other instances are more expensive.