Windows Terminal Server Replacement?

Evanrude asks: "In my never ending quest to eliminate the Windows operating system from my life, I have yet to find a Linux replacement for the Windows Terminal Server product/service. I have come across the Linux Terminal Server Project but from everything I have read about it, you must boot a diskless workstation to use it, there is no client to connect to it from say a remote workstation [read: internet or remote VPN client]. There is also the Citrix Metaframe Presentation Server for Unix, but I am really looking for something that will run on Linux. I have also googled for anything related to Linux and the Remote Desktop Protocol, but have not had good luck. Has anyone had any experience with replacing a Windows Terminal Server with something Linux based or know of any other projects that might be more on track with this than the LTSP?"

Comments

Re:I think the product you're looking for

[cyber0ne]

Not sure if the submitter is thinking along the same lines as me, but I had this same question recently and have just gone with VNC so far.

More to the point, everyone here seems to be saying "just use the built-in networking of X11." This is all well and good, but let me elaborate on what I was looking for when I was researching this myself (again, I can't speak for the submitter.)

Using X over SSH and Cygwin and all that was simple enough, but the functionality I couldn't achieve with it was the ability to "detach" my X session and "re-attach" it from another machine, essentially meaning the X session was permanent and the client connections to it would come and go. Is there a way to do this via the tools you're recommending?

VNC does provide this, but what it doesn't provide is the level of "desktop integration" found in WTS. That is, suppose I copy something in one, I can't paste it in the other. Moving files back and forth, etc. has the same limitations. The 2 GUI sessions basically have no knowledge of each other's existance. Again, is there a way to achieve this with the tools you're recommending?

I'm not trolling or anything, I'm honestly looking for the ideal solution for my own networking needs. I was basically looking for a setup like "screen" on my xterm, but for the whole GUI session. WTS does this beautifully on my XP box, but so far I'm only using VNC on my Linux box.

FREENX - it does that - whatever that is.

[narrowhouse]

OK several people have mentioned it, but apparently the other posters don't seem to catch the hint.

FreeNX does a new connection for each user on the fly.
It allows printer, file and sound sharing.
It works over SLOW connections.
It is cross platform.
It allows you to disconnect from a session and rejoin later.
It has a commercial version if you want support.
I can be used to connect a single app instead of a desktop.

If it doesn't do what you want then neither does Terminal Services.