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The State of Remote Desktops?
frenchgates writes "It became clear to me (when my main machine had to be sent away for repairs for a week) that it's high time to finally divorce myself from any particular computer by using data and software accessible from any internet connected computer as much as possible. I'm talking Visual IDEs, productivity apps, powerful, easy to use email client, etc, all presented to me consistently from computer to computer on my remote virtual desktop. Is anyone seriously trying this? What are the best practices and best applications? What are the biggest shortcomings? What if I limit my demand to "accessible from any internet connected Windows machine with Java installed?" Are there good web sites devoted to this noble goal?"
Not bashing Microsoft, but...
Why limit yourself to a Windows desktop? You specifically mention Java, isn't the point of Java to be platform independent?
Shouldn't the goal be accessability from any type of machine?
-- "Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?"
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E_NOSIG
What you describe is Microsoft's .NET and Passport strategy. I'm not trying to get modded down as Flamebait but to tell you the truth, the biggest disadvantage IMHO is that it would be controlled by a company that I don't trust. Specifically Microsoft.
I like the concept of being able to access MY desktop from anywhere but it opens up a few security concerns. Security doesn't seem to be Microsoft's strong suit.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
One of the niftier solutions I saw in use at Sun were Sun "Ray" stations, which were little boxes that had video/input/audio/etc. on them, no fan, and they were basically dumb terminals. You would insert your ID card and your desktop would come up immediately. It "just worked". Unfortunately it requires Sun hardware, but is quite interesting nonetheless. Citrix is the other environment that comes to mind. If you want free you'd need VNC though.
'Cos with VNC I can remote access my Dad's Win98 box from my OS X iBook, and fix LookOut Express for him. Can't do that with X-Server or Terminal Services.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
I think that given current network technology, your goal is not really practical at present. The best you can do is have data stored in one central location, and then have a number of clients, each of which has software to interpret the data...
Basically, IMAP, LDAP etc. would be a good bet, with other higher level solutions presenting a different set of problems (think passport)
From what I understand talking to a friend, there are basically a few ways of doing remote desktops.
Screenshots
This method includes scraping the screen, compressing the bitmap and transferring it across the pipe. (I believe VNC uses this method)
Intercepting Graphics Libraries
This method requires the software intercept calls to the operating system's graphics libraries. Rather than capturing large bitmaps, this method aims to be more efficient by capturing the basic drawing instructions themselves. I believe Citrix uses this method, I could be wrong.
Widgets
Rather than capturing screens or graphics instructions, this method standardizes basic user interface components and thier respective events.
When the user click on a button, it sends a message to the server telling it you clicked the button. The server may send the client messages, telling it to hide the button, or give a textbox a new value.
From what I understand, this is how X-Windows works.
Question 1: What sort of method is this guy looking for?
Question 2: What method(s) should *WE* be working on?
Question 3: Does anybody have any other methods they would like to share?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
That isn't painful with unison. I use this to sync my laptop and desktop. Unlike rsync, unison can propogate changes in *both* directions. This allows me to keep my home directory consistent. And for the paranoid, it can even be used over ssh.
I am sure nothing like this exists yet, but in answer to some of the comments about the problems that can occur if you still have a centralized system you connect to via a client, I wonder if FreeNet(or something like it) could be used to some degree in a situation like this. Programs and data could be stored all over the network like data is on FreeNet. Although, I am sure running a program from a system like this could get interesting. But I think that a distributed approach to this could be the way to go than trying to have a centralized set of servers. I could also be better for privacy. Just an interesting(IMHO) idea to ponder.
I'm trying to restrain a rant, but this kind of pooh-pooh-ing is exactly why Linux continues to look like everyone's kid brother.
I am a student, with the opportunity of working at home. At school - fairly good T1. At home 256K DSL. Which means as connectivity goes, I'm actually quite well off. I run Mandrake and Windows on both ends. In this setup (note again that it is an above-average one), I can tell you that using X (over SSH with compression enabled), Matlab (java app) runs juuuuust barely fast enough to be usable. Any KDE/GNOME apps - forgetaboutit. I used VNC for about 20 minutes before getting tired of waiting for the pointer to catch up to my mouse. My then-roommate, who works for Microsoft, could easily use PPTP to connect to his TermServ machine over the same connection. Not at all sluggish. In fact, he could even do it over dialup (then it was sluggish).
X windows does what it was designed to do - let you redirect displays over the local network, but it's not a long-distance remote access answer.
If we Linuxites want remote connectivity for desktop apps, we'll need to figure out how to make higher-level RPC calls. Being a KDE user, I'd love to see this built into QT or KDE.
That's the desktop part. Now the data storage part:
In our glorious remote computing future, your data is stored in the "network cloud". Microsoft will implement this by selling Cloud Server 1.0, which only works if you have Microsoft Synchronization Server running on Whistlerhorn XPDQ.
But rather than trying to do things exactly the MS does, we can do them the Linux way: make a "cloud" that you can tweak to your little heart's delight. Example: My cloud = my home box via DSL, an extra backup box at home, a work computer and a PDA. Mandrake could hypothetically build a nice installer that sets up a generic configuration for add storage to my cloud, and some preconfigurated synchronization settings. It won't snap into a network quite as smoothly as MS Cloud Server, but if I want to change the kernel latency for the cloud-synching process, I can just go ahead and do that. All on my own machines...
when my main machine had to be sent away for repairs for a week
I'm trolling, but come on.... You send your PC away for repairs? What kind of geek are you!@?
I do this all the time. Just connect to your remote server using ssh, then use screen to maintain a connection-independent terminal to run pine. Then when you connect from another location, just run "screen -d -r" and you can finish typing where you left off.
The nice thing about this approach is that it _just_works_. Even if I sit down to an old green screen terminal at Ye Old Backwater Public Library.
I've recently had to install a remote access situation at work for a bunch of consultants working on a project. We have non-public IPs for our inhouse machines and a couple of webservers with public IP's and then I discovered the magic of SSH port forwarding. We were able to forward PCAnywhere as well as several other TCP ports (the one drawback of SSH is that you can't forward UDP ports) that allowed them to use client programs across the internet without compromising security. In fact its worked too well and almost everyone in the department has asked me to set up their system for PCAnywhere over SSH. Its a poor-man's VPN (which you would use to do it right). But with SSH you can forward VNC and X-Windows, and of course you have your SSH for your unix systems. Does it work well? Well that depends on your bandwidth. Lots of bandwidth makes everything more palatable.
Your "homepage" could have e-mail, file&print access across different servers, and applications. Depending on HOW you're accessing the system it'll change how it delivers apps.
For example, if you're on a high-speed LAN it'll figure out what servers are closest to you and deliver apps to your desktop if they're not already installed. If you move to a different office, it'll change to the closest server that has the apps on it.
If you're at a web cafe or on a dial-up connection, it can deliver the SAME apps via a Citrix session automatically without the user having to pay attention to the underlying mechanisms, keeping track of licensing concerns automatically.
This is not just a simple remote "viewing" solution like VNC and it's not a remote "processing, local viewing" solution like X - it's a way to tie together all of the resources (servers, apps, data) you already have in a solution that the users can easily take with them anywhere without having to change to fit the system. Pretty cool.
Go here for more info on synergy.
Unfortunately, they haven't yet put up any screenshots, but the ones I've seen look really cool... here's a 3rd-party article that gives you a better idea of how this works than I can.
(Yes, they embraced Linux a while back, and yes, ZENworks Synergy is supposed to even extend to handhelds. :)
No, I don't work for Novell - I just think they *still* make some damn fine products (even if their marketing does really suck.)
Sure VNC and X Windows is great if you have a nice high speed broadband connection where ever you go. However in the real world this isn't always possible.
:0).... I just wish I could convince our CEO to start using IMAP!
:0P Well luckily Mirabilis came up with the solution to this one, the most recent versions of ICQ store your contact list on the server so I never have to get authorisation from anyone ever again :0D
;0)
My problem:
I often move around different computers in the office, every time I get a new computer I have to reinstall everything and I like to have access to everything from home.
My solution:
Firstly, one of the most important things in a business is to keep all your email don't lose a single message. Sow what to do about this? Well I'm in a pretty good situation because I control our mailserver so I configured it to use IMAP as well as POP3. Now I can access all my mail from any computer in our office and from home also. It was particularly handy have home access because it mean that I didn't have to send any email messages that I recieved at home back to myself so I had a copy at work. The mail server is backed up daily to tape so there's no worry of ever losing important messags
(I only have a 33.6k dialup from home by the way)
For those that don't have control of their mail server and can't use IMAP there's always a wide varity of web mail services available.
Next how do I access all those files that I'm currently working with? This one's not as hard as it may seem, that's what file servers are for. Don't keep any of your files on your workstation (this is something that I'm finally starting to get through to my co-workers after 2 years). I use samba to access file within the office, if I'm at home I use a combination of FTP and samba (however samba is a slow dog over a dialup connection). The file servers are of course backed up every day so there is a lot less chance of losing important work than there is if I save everything on my workstation.
The next problem I faced was that pesky ICQ list, every time I changed computer or had to reinstall it I had to get authorisation from everyone on my list again
I've only addressed a few issues here but I hope I've made my point that broadband isn't always the only solution. Especialy when you live in a backward country like Australia where high speed Internet connections aren't readily available to your average underpaid IT employee
Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?