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."

Comments

thin clients revisited

[cjsteele]

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...

Another entry in the central vs. distributed power

[CFD339]

...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.