[TriLUG] Lightweight X Desktop

[Owen Berry]

On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 5:37 PM, Alan Porter <porter at trilug.org> wrote:
> However, NX seems to follow the 'vncserver' model of sharing an
> entirely new X session.  I had hoped it would support the 'x11vnc'
> model (also used by Windows VNC server), where it shares the
> existing X session running on display :0.
>
> Can you do that?

It is possible, but when you login locally you also need to connect to
your NX session. That is, login locally using a really lightweight
window manager (or maybe none), open NX client and connect to local NX
session running Gnome/KDE/XFCE/whatever. That way you connect to the
same NX session no matter whether you're connecting locally or
remotely.

Another option is to use the NX client to connect over VNC. Not sure
if this just does traditional VNC over SSH, or if it does something
fancy like a loopback of VNC traffic within the target host, and then
using the NX compression and traffic reducing techniques to send the
data over to the client. Try it and see if it's better than
traditional VNC over SSH.

To me, this is something where MS actually has a much better solution.
Although NX seems to compare to remote desktop in terms of
performance, remote desktop is much better at this session handling
thing, just the way everyone seems to want it to work. It even handles
resolution changes between displays. Due to my home laptop having a
totally different display size to my work desktop, it is much better
for me to just stop fighting the session problem, logout at work and
log back in from home over NX when I need to. I have to shut all my
applications down (duh!), but it's worth it since I'm only doing it
once or twice a week.

Owen