Next Knoppix Release to Feature GPL'd FreeNX 238
linuxtag-reporter writes "The first day of LinuxTag, Europe's biggest Free Software event (expecting 25,000 visitors) already has one big highlight. It seems that Fabian Franz from the Knoppix Project hacked up a 'FreeNX Server' based on NoMachine's NX technology (poor NoMachine might lose business now). Fabian Franz presented a first preview of the 'GPL Edition' in a live demo together with Kurt Pfeifle. The demo showed sessions going from Germany to Italy just based on a slow WLAN connectivity (shared with hundreds of visitors). A connection lost due to bad network conditions was easily re-connected to, and a deliberately suspended session was revitalized too -- it was just like 'screen' with a GUI! A report on the official LinuxTag webpage says FreeNX will be publically released for the first time as part of the upcoming Knoppix-3.6 release. The Kalyxo project is building and hosting Debian packages of FreeNX and NX/GPL for everyone to use."
Knoppix is great for the KDE crowd... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:VNC (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Knoppix is great for the KDE crowd... (Score:3, Informative)
Boot up, hit Ctrl-Alt-F2, type knx-hdinstall.
You are wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing particularly new: firms will continue to give money to NoMachine for support and administration tools.
Have fun...
Re:Correct me if I'm wrong (Score:5, Informative)
All the core NX technology is GPL. The proprietary part is based on them. What Fabian did was to take those components and create it's own version of this part.
Re:What do these things do? (Score:5, Informative)
"Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a
physical terminal between several processes (typically
interactive shells)."
I use it all the time; start an interactive job while I'm at work on a particular machine using screen, disconnect using "CTRL-A d" then go home, log into the same machine, issue the command "screen -r" and I'm right back into that shell session.
These days, I mostly use TightVNC [tightvnc.com] over a VPN pipe instead, which gives me the graphical equivalent of this.
Hope this helps.
- Leo
Re:Better than VNC through compressed ssh? (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I remember... (Score:3, Informative)
I remember trying to build it from source when it first came out, but it proved rather tricky. It's nice that someone's now put in the time to make an easy-to-compile distribution of it.
Re:Kudos to developers (Score:3, Informative)
For those looking for MoMachine info... (Score:5, Informative)
Potential source for FreeNX Server [64.233.167.104]
what NX is (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.newsforge.com/software/03/07/10/214624
from the article:
Thin client computing lets users run applications on a remote server and display the results locally. NX Client works something like VNC (see our recent story), but instead of using Remote Frame Buffer protocol, NX Client acts as an X Window server. Thin clients help contain costs by eliminating the need to install applications at each user's desktop, and improve security by limiting the availability of applications and data. The clients themselves can be dedicated hardware devices or regular computers running thin client software.
What is NX (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.newsforge.com/software/03/07/10/21462 47.shtml?tid=11
Re:Knoppix is great for the KDE crowd... (Score:4, Informative)
I can boot into Knoppix, lspci, download the drivers I need from Intel's site, and put them on the disk for Windows to find.
Another good example is my boss, who's laptop drive crashed a few weeks ago. While he waited for a replacement, he ran everything off of Knoppix and a USB Key.
It's impressive stuff.
--
lds
Try this link (Score:4, Informative)
Re:WTF is FreeNX?? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Better than VNC through compressed ssh? (Score:2, Informative)
vncserver -localhost
On the client
ssh -L5901:localhost:5901 servername
vncviewer localhost:1
There you go. The server is persistent. If the ssh connection goes down, just reconnect and restart the viewer.
Re:TightVNC is great (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Better than VNC through compressed ssh? (Score:5, Informative)
introduction to NX (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.orangecrate.com/article.php?sid=677
Re:What do these things do? (Score:2, Informative)
What you are looking for is xmove [debian.org].
It's not been updated since '94 and it's flakey as hell - but it allows you to move an X application from machine to machine.
It works as a proxy server between your application and the real X server - which must be listening on a TCP socket.
I've toyed with it, but not managed a great deal of success.
"Poor NoMachine" (Score:3, Informative)
NX is even mildly supportive of an open-source complete solution -- on the source download page (their site is ./'ed right now) it clearly says something to the effect that they expect a community-created packages will be assembled.
Re:VNC (Score:1, Informative)
LAN:
X11
ICA (Citrix)
RDPv5
PcAnyWhere
RFB with Hextile encoding (VNC)
WAN:
ICA
RDPv5
NX
RFB with Tight encoding
PcAnyWhere
Webex
X11
I have never tired NX over a LAN, but it would probably be pointless. Note the NX over a WAN seems as fast as RDP, but since I have only tried NX from one server and with the differences between the Linux/Windows desktop, its hard to tell for sure which is better.
Speed is only half the story though. VNC's biggest bonus is that the server client are very portable, small and safe to install. ICA is the best, but not widely avaliable. RDP is more common now that all servers and XP workstations have it.
However, I still use VNC over RDP because of NAT firewalls. VNC has an option where the server can connect to the client which allows me to connect to basically any computer in the world with Internet access and a 700kb download. A poor mans webex except faster and easier to use.
Halfway between Citrix and VNC (Score:3, Informative)
KDE NX? (Score:4, Informative)
For those still mystified as to what NX is, it is essentially X11 tunneled through SSH, with some clever caching to drastically limit the number of connections an X server/client need to make, to make the connection feel much quicker.
untechnical explanation: Normally a remote X session will have to make many hundreds/thousands of trips between the server and client, but NX uses a cache at both ends, only making the most necessary trips, and usually just sending a diff of the changes rather than the whole stream of data. (roughly speaking, of course, as I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about.)
Re:Better than VNC through compressed ssh? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Better than VNC through compressed ssh? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Better than VNC through compressed ssh? (Score:3, Informative)
The compression is one very good benefit. It is not simple zip-like compression of the data stream, but a somewhat smart image compression which takes advantage of the fact that it is usually transmitting a desktop with draggable rectangular windows. Compression can be optimized on special cases like that.
Multiple simultaneous desktops is something more to do with X11 than VNC, but VNC is a good way to realize this through multiple servers. Also, VNC is cross platform so you can view your desktop on a Mac or Windows machine with all native apps and no client-side X11 whatsoever, or view a Mac or Windows desktop on your favorite unix-like box.