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NX - A Revolution In Network Computing?
Anonymous Coward writes "Judging from this interview, it looks like KDE developers have
found a new toy to add to their desktop's networking capabilities. They claim to be able to cram a fullscreen KDE session -- KMail for mailing, Konqueror for file management, Mozilla for web browsing and OpenOffice for word processing -- into a 40 KBit/sec modem connection without losing responsiveness for the user experience. At aKademy, the 9 day KDE Community World Summit, a group of core developers started to work on NX/FreeNX integration to help facilitate the "re-invention of the KDE desktop environment" for KDE4. Knoppix-3.6 is the first Linux distribution to ship an integrated FreeNX server (created by Fabian Franz) with the NoMachine NX Client."
This should give them a boost in the thin client workstation office enviroment! It would be interesting to see this in action.
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
This is PCAnywhere for linux?
I run sessions over shit dial-up connections, like 16.8kbit or so, and the responsiveness is decent. If I get a full 56.6 connection, it's really good.
I know we cheerlead for OSS around here, but is this a brand new amazing wonderful thing, or just another VNC protocol? And does KDE need more stuff? The K is for "Kram it all in!"
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Evas-based apps (including the upcoming E17 window manager) perform extremely well over remote X connections, using traditional Xlib. I have tested this myself, over remote connections Evas-based apps are at least 10 times more responsive than GTK/QT apps, using the same traditional X11 connection. Evas is designed to minimize roundtrips to the server so everything gets drawn the first time. And there's a new canvas server in CVS called Evoak that allows remote canvas sharing among applications, complete with gzip compression etc....NX probably won't even be able to touch it performance wise.
Am I a hipster-doofus?
My employer had previously deployed 2,000 modified NetBSD thin clients from IBM that ran off of 200+ Linux boxes that provided the OS, print and storage facilities, but let the thin client do the grinding on the apps... only difference here is that the thin client doesn't grind on the data, just renders screen shots. Fact of the mater is, both approaches are highly manageable ways to provide low-cost computing to the masses...
"This above all, to thine own self be true"
Have you actually tried a connection using NX? I have and I can tell you that is damn responsive remote x even over a slow link. I run 400 remote x terminals on a lan and it is not much use for me but if I needed to support road warriors I would not hesitate to use it.
Got Code?
I use NX nearly daily. Its just like VNC, just a million times faster and its more clear, so stop whining. NX isn't useless, I've used every desktop program that you can name with it, nothing special needs to be done. I installed the deb with dpkg, added a user, went to work the next day and connected home. Literally nothing else had to be done, it is such an easy setup, I was very impressed. Oh and did I mention, its fast, really fast. I could hardly tell I wasn't sitting at home. Some other cool things you can do with it are printer fowarding and I think something with file transfers, although I haven't used either because I haven't needed to.
Regards,
Steve
It's interesting, but until there are thin clients (no, not the roll-your-own-with-old-PCs variety) that support the protocol, it's a hard sell in a lot of environments. M$ Terminal Services is a pain, and isn't cheap, but we can deploy thin clients with ready RDP sessions in addition to VT220 and tn5250 emulation (including passthru printing). I could do all that with a PC running *nix, but the PC hardware isn't a book-sized device that churns away happily in a dusty warehouse.
It's not a knock by any means. I'd love to centralize the client apps and just serve sessions over 40kbps. But even that is a little expensive over a 128/256kbps frame relay connection. It's nice. It will be useful. But doesn't sound like something to adopt in a real, low-bandwidth, network computing environment at the moment. I'd love to hear that I'm wrong and missing the point, because I'd *love* to replace MS WTS as well as local PCs in our warehouses.
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
...fight that's brewing. This may be the linux entry.
IBM is pushing toward a new (centrally managed and provisioned) eclipse based rich client (aka browser on roids) to talk mostly to its workplace portal (aka websphere with portlets)
Microsoft is pushing the other way with a more complex workstation model and an enhanced "user controlled" sharing place via sharepoint portal,
Linux desktops have, generally, been trying to mimick Microsoft stuff but with secure, stable applications....(e.g. open office)
Now, a KDE may become a player in the rich but centrally managed client space.
Interesting.
Clearly there is a place for centrally managed rich client -- think live of business stuff that at one time was managed through the 3270 terminal. The browser has proven it sucks for that kind of thing, but this trend toward a semi-open or open rich client replacement is going to be the thing to watch.
Line workers are going to use this stuff (IBM's or something like it -- this KDE version could be it too). The big battle will be for how corporations manage knowledge worker desktops. Will it be a Centrally controlled rich client, or a traditional powerful workstation with sharing tacked on.
It seems like Linux based machines are likely to have a horse in both races.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Network clients are the future. Things like NX, JDS, Citrix and the like are massivly deployed in the corporate world.
As an administrator, I love the centralized configuration. The ability of a person to move from their office to a conference room and pop right back into a session is fantastic. Add the ability to enter a session from home or a VPN tunnel and it is really useful
In the office, that means many people can use inexpensive PC's or thin clients and get everything but 3D. Maintenance is a breeze, since I don't have to install whole bundles of software per machine or tweak up Ghost images it saves me time.
For most of my users, it makes things easier. They can access their work and stuff from anywhere. The network is either switched 100-base or in some cases switched 1000-base, so there is NO LAG in loading/saving data or running programs. Hell, stuff loads/saves FASTER through Gig-E to our SAN than to a desktop IDE drive!
An NX Server behind the firewall that I can tunnel to gives me a gateway to every PC in the building via translated RDP (Windows) or VNC. AND it seamlessly encrypts the sessions (unlike VNC). All I need is one hole in the firewall for the NX server, instead of one per VNC box. (Yes, I could tunnel VNC over SSH or stunnel, but that is a pain in the ass and NX is so much easier.)
And if KDE 3.2.3 or 3.3 is slow on your stated config, then something is wrong. Spend an evening and compile your own version w/P4 optimizations and remove the excess items you don't use. It should scream.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
The post was really a feeble attempt at humor, but since you bring it up...
What I've read about NX is that it is more like x11 than it is like a VPN. Linux does have several VPN implementations to choose from, but NX is really a lightweight windowing client / server protocol.
Microsoft might have tried something like this back in the Win 3.11 days, but all they did there was make some of the office products client / server capable. After the shift to NT based os's, and their move to a peer to peer network, I think that they pretty much closed the door on something like X11 or NX (that's not a criticism, going client server has as many issues as going peer to peer, just different ones).
Besides, as Microsoft has shown us innovation is for losers. Winners let the Apples and Suns of the world innovate. Then the winners merely implement the stuff when it becomes a common standard. That way you don't waste time and money on R&D.