[TriLUG] OSS citrix alternative? VNC, perhaps?

[Brent Verner]

[2005-06-16 22:05] Greg Brown said:

| Assuming his applications are on Windows servers what are
| his options here?  Can he run a Linux desktop with a VNC connection
| back to his primary office over a WAN connection and pull up a Win
| "desktop" with access to his business apps?  I'd even like to know if
| that is possible.

	I'll piss off all my Open Source constituents here and say that
Microsoft's RDP is _much_ better than VNC (and X), in my experience,
for remote GUI apps[1].  If your buddy can run the RDP server (er, 
Terminal Server, or somesuch) on his Windows boxes, you can install
rdesktop and/or tsclient to access an MS desktop.

| I am sure that even with a good size point-to-point circuit this type
| of operation would be painfully slow, or would it?  Has anyone
| installed anything like this before?

	Actually, RDP is quite usable when the server is at the end of
a normal DSL/Cable connection, which is more than I can say for
VNC and/or X :-\

	b

[1] Please, please, please someone tell me how to make X perform
    as well as RDP so I can stop admitting that Microsoft actually 
		has something better than us...