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Splashtop's Cliff Miller Talks About Their New Linux App (Video)

Posted by Roblimo on from the around-the-corner-or-around-the-world-is-all-the-same-to-me dept.

Yes, you can now have full remote access to your home computer or a server at work that's running Ubuntu Linux. Really any Linux distro, although only Ubuntu is formally supported by Splashtop. What? You say you already control your home and work Linux computers from your Android tablet with VNC? That there's a whole bunch of Android VNC apps out there already? And plenty for iOS, too? You're right. But Cliff says Splashtop is better than the others. It can play video at a full 30 frames per second, and has low enough latency (depending on your connection) that you can play video games remotely in between taking care of that list of server issues your boss emailed to you. Or perhaps, in between work tasks, you take a dip in the ocean, because you're working from the beach, not from a stuffy office. It seems that work and living locations get a little more remote from each other every year, and Splashtop is helping to make that happen. This video interview is, itself, an example of how our world has gotten flatter; Cliff was in China and I was in Florida. The connection wasn't perfect, but the fact that we could have this conversation at all is a wonder. Please note, too, that while Cliff Miller is now Chief Marketing Officer for Splashtop, he was also the founder and first CEO of TurboLinux, so he is not new to Linux. And Splashtop is the company that supplied the "instant on" Linux OS a lot of computer manufacturers bundled with their Windows computers for a few years. Now, of course, they're focusing on the remote desktop, and seem to be making a go of it despite heavy competition in that market niche.

59 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Hold on, let me check something... by cultiv8 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Right, for some reason the "Disable ads" checkbox is not hiding all ads.

    --
    sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
    1. Re:Hold on, let me check something... by sp332 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The URL actually says ?utm_source=PR&utm_medium=PRWeb&utm_campaign=LinuxStreamer-20121128

    2. Re:Hold on, let me check something... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Slashdot is something other than an exciting opportunity to give your product visibility and shape opinions in the tech community.

    3. Re:Hold on, let me check something... by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Right, for some reason the "Disable ads" checkbox is not hiding all ads.

      Worse than that, it's inserting them where the stories used to be.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  2. What happened to NX? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    NX compression on the X protocol made for snappy desktops and responsive thin-client apps. What ever happened to the guys at nomachine?

    1. Re:What happened to NX? by hb253 · · Score: 1

      Don't know but I still use FreeNX to remotely.accees my home Linux box.

      --
      Self awareness - try it!
  3. Why this and not that? by jdharm · · Score: 2

    I'm just now getting around to exploring remote admin options. I just recently discovered the joy of X over SSH and decided to be done with VNC. Now I see this...why would I use Splashtop instead of X over SSH?

    Not a challenge, a request for info.

    1. Re:Why this and not that? by Desler · · Score: 2, Funny

      Because the Chief Marketing Officer says so. Surely that is an unbiased source.

    2. Re:Why this and not that? by ulzeraj · · Score: 1

      X over SSH is a real pain to use over internet. Not that I'm recommending Splashtop.

      Have you checked freenx?

    3. Re:Why this and not that? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Straight X over SSH is very slow over the wide internet. Compressed X streams can be very pleasant, e.g., dxpc or NX. NX is now closed source (and the older OSS versions are very difficult to build and use). X2Go looks like they might take the source and run with it.

    4. Re:Why this and not that? by batkiwi · · Score: 2

      What happens to your X over SSH session when you lose internet for 30 seconds (say your 3g coverage drops, or your wifi goes wonky)?

    5. Re:Why this and not that? by grumpy_old_grandpa · · Score: 1

      Why would you remote admin anything at all through a GUI? Can't you just use the shell you already have through SSH?

    6. Re:Why this and not that? by phayes · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The session drops & you loose all apps that were running on the X Desktop... Which is a the reason I used Xvnc when I had a need to do this. Xvnc is headless (a virtual X desktop) that you use VNC to connect to. Xvnc's biggest weakness was VNC -- slooowwww but it worked way back when there was no other means of doing this.

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
    7. Re:Why this and not that? by phayes · · Score: 1

      Sometimes you need the X windows application & not just a console access. Web Apps have done away with most of these but some X apps are still indispendable...

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
    8. Re:Why this and not that? by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

      No Android client for NX... at least, not the last time I checked.

      If you have a Linux, Windows, or Mac-based laptop to connect to hosted apps, though, it works remarkably well. I've used it to do stuff over a 2G cellular connection, and it's as zippy as VLC over a 100mbit LAN.

    9. Re:Why this and not that? by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

      VNC*. that'll teach me to type while watching TV.

    10. Re:Why this and not that? by Gaygirlie · · Score: 1

      I'm just now getting around to exploring remote admin options. I just recently discovered the joy of X over SSH and decided to be done with VNC. Now I see this...why would I use Splashtop instead of X over SSH?

      Speed, mostly. Splashtop is a whole buttload faster than X over SSH, plus as it was mentioned, it can carry audio and all with it. Also, with X over SSH you lose all the stuff you had running if you get disconnected, whereas with Splashtop you don't. If you're familiar with Nomachine NX then Splashtop is a lot like that, only seemingly still slightly faster and supports more clients -- NX doesn't have an Android-client, for example.

    11. Re:Why this and not that? by caseih · · Score: 1

      FreeNX still works for me, with the opennx client. I can yum install both the server and client.

    12. Re:Why this and not that? by jdharm · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the replies. Saved me a couple 'learn the hard way' episodes.

      1) Disconnect issue - I kind of had it in my head the X over SSH was for doing things I wasn't afraid to loose & was going right to the console for permanent system-wide changes. Good to know I had a reason for doing that.

      2) Speed - My servers and I reside in the sticks of Arkansas. There is no such thing as "slow" here. It's all "normal" and "wow!" to us, so this one is kind of a non-issue for me. (To give you an example of the situation: some guy dug up one cable and 4 counties in NE Arkansas lost all connection to the outside world: cell phones, land lines, internet, everything. We were like Syria for about 8 hrs. Not that anyone but us noticed.)

      3) DXPC - Nice. I'll make that next on my list of things to try.

  4. the remote desktop has uses by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    the instant on os pos doesn't.

    so it's only proper to focus on it.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  5. Version 2 meh by bhsx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So far I'm not a fan of Version 2. They've detached themselves from Google servers and I know why they did it. Google just released Chrome Remote Desktop, which is a VERY fine replacement for TeamViewer-type implementations. Surely Google will add this to Android's Chrome stack and then it's truly game on for all of these me-too NAT-traversing, competing remote desktop applications. Interesting times ahead in this space.

    --
    put the what in the where?
    1. Re:Version 2 meh by Rich0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It looks like Chrome Remote Desktop requires leaving a desktop running chrome all the time (which is pretty RAM-intensive), and it doesn't support linux either. There are a bazillion solutions for accessing windows remotely, in part because RDP isn't that bad, and Citrix pretty much has the high end locked up.

      If Google really wants to sell chromebooks to business what they need is a chrome-based app for viewing applications hosted on windows/linux/OSX PCs, which is lightweight on the server side so that you can run those applications on a server and not just have a PC dedicated for each chromebook. I don't get their strategy - it is obviously an ideal business laptop from a security/maintainability standpoint, so if they just provided a way to run applications that aren't web-based that would probably drive more adoption.

    2. Re:Version 2 meh by bhsx · · Score: 1

      You don't need to be running Chrome. It installs a service if you want to set it up for remote access on demand. Same for Mac installs. The first time I used this I installed it to do some remote Mac admining from a Windows box without proper means to do so otherwise, and it worked a charm.

      --
      put the what in the where?
    3. Re:Version 2 meh by caseih · · Score: 1

      Chrome Remote Desktop can be enabled as a service. That's what the second box is for on the main screen when you first fire it up in chrome. you can have a whole bunch of computers that show up there and connect to them any time anywhere. And the Remote Desktop Server part runs as a service (I think it interfaces with Microsoft's RDP server for this). This part doesn't work on Linux though.

      The rest of Chrome Remote Desktop works fine on Linux. In either direction.

    4. Re:Version 2 meh by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Can you have 35 users run 35 instances of a single application consuming roughly only 35x the data memory requirements of that application in this manner?

      That was what I was getting at. This seems to be limited to sharing desktops, and I suspect it is limited to one login session per PC at a time, though I'm not certain of that.

      Suppose I'm a small business with 15 employees. Most of what we do is on Google Apps. I have 3 quickbooks users who use the app a fair bit of the day, and an inventory app that is win32 only that gets about 10% usage. That is about 5 concurrent users across two apps. Right now if you want to deploy Chrombooks you'd need to deploy 5 PCs that individuals could remote desktop into in order to run those apps, and those PCs would basically have idle CPUs 95% of the time, and individuals need to worry about logging in/out and which PCs are used for which apps and all that nonsense. What any company would want to do is just have one PC serving up those two apps, and individuals would just launch a bookmark or whatever to get a tap that runs that one app without having to worry about where it is running.

      If Google wants ChromeOS to take off in the business world they really need a simple solution to this problem, and it isn't exactly a problem that hasn't been solved 14 times already.

    5. Re:Version 2 meh by caseih · · Score: 1

      The one remote user per computer bit is a limitation Microsoft has placed on their non-server OS's. So no matter what software solution you use, you have to buy a Windows Server license and a bunch of CALs.

    6. Re:Version 2 meh by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Suppose I'm a small business with 15 employees. Most of what we do is on Google Apps

      You will fail.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    7. Re:Version 2 meh by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Well, presumably Google wouldn't be making the device unless they felt otherwise, but my point was that their failure to handle the one-offs stands in the way of adoption.

      Google has to overcome opinions like yours to make a sale no matter what. However, because they have no solution for running the odd win32 application on ChromeOS they have set the bar considerably higher - a potential customer can't have ANY win32 apps to be a good candidate for ChromeOS.

  6. Oh, a new shtick. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I went to interview for Turbolinux back in 1999 or so. They were in SF then. It was then an obvious scam, a play for investor money, using Linux moniker for self-promotion. They had no plan, no purpose and no technology. They did have a cool logo and a few high profile guys. Then it all folded like a house of cards that it was, TurboLinux was sold to some chinese firm, who used the name and then dumped it. This wasn't very unusual in those days, of course - so I can't entirely blame them. But - given that history, pardon me for being skeptical.

    Also, Cliff is looking older. Time flies. Where did my youth go?

    1. Re:Oh, a new shtick. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ITurboLinux was sold to some chinese firm, who used the name and then dumped it.

      Actually, it was a Japanese company, Living on the Edge, soon renamed to Livedoor. Soon afterwards, the CEO of Livedoor went to prison for securities fraud.

  7. Register an account...? by cayenne8 · · Score: 1
    I just only read the blurb from the link above...but it said something about needing to register an account with Splashtop in order to use this...

    Does this mean you somehow have to run your connections through their servers.....basically giving them access to your traffic while running this remote connectivity software?

    Sounds like a bad idea to me if this is so....?

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:Register an account...? by rogabean · · Score: 2

      This is only for locating your computers remotely outside of your network.

      --
      "why don't you just slip into something more comfortable...like a coma!"
    2. Re:Register an account...? by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is only for locating your computers remotely outside of your network.

      Well, yes, I assumed that...that's the only way I'd want to generally be using this...?

      Just watched the video...looks like they charge you by the minute for this too?

      No thanks...more secure and free methods out there is seems...

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  8. They sacrificed security for speed by jspraul · · Score: 5, Informative

    Splashtop shipped an unencrypted remote access solution for nearly 1.5 years without giant disclaimers.
    http://slickdeals.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-4033850.html

    I'm supposed to trust them now that it's finally encrypted?

    1. Re:They sacrificed security for speed by wiedzmin · · Score: 1

      I wish I had mod points left for you. That is exactly what I was thinking, in fact that is exactly what I think every time I see Splashtop brand anywhere.

      --
      Bow before me, for I am root.
    2. Re:They sacrificed security for speed by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Interesting. Most of the competing solutions just stream the whole thing over ssh. Makes sense - that takes care of both encryption and authentication and is a solved problem. Then they do their magic on top. Unless you want to use a UDP-based solution you'd be hard-pressed to do better.

    3. Re:They sacrificed security for speed by wiedzmin · · Score: 1

      Also takes care of many firewall and DLP restrictions, if you do it over one of the web ports, I bet.

      --
      Bow before me, for I am root.
    4. Re:They sacrificed security for speed by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      Very true. You can have all the sockets you want in your ssh connection, and they can go whatever direction you want them to go in, but the outside connection is just one TCP connection that starts at the side you generally have the least control over.

      Again, the only reason I could see for maybe doing something outside of ssh is if you wanted a realtime transport for screen updates. That is one problem I've seen with NX - if I hit page-down twice on a client-rendered browser like chromium I get to watch the thing paint the whole screen twice as all those screen updates go into one massive FIFO buffer. The thing should just throw away obsoleted information. Of course, to do that you'd probably also need to come up with the NX equivalent of keyframes.

  9. DPXC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    http://www.vigor.nu/dxpc/

  10. Re:WHAT NT DID IN THE 90S SLUSHTOP DOES TODAY !! by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeeehaaaaaw !! Linux is making some sort of a showing - in a race run 20 years ago !!

    no not quite linux has been able to do this for years already with several different protocals. its more like:

    Yeeehaaaaaw !! We wrote our app that for Linux to do something that you could already do on linux for years and pretending that this is wonderful and new so you will buy our proprietary version that will spam you with adds while you work and we promise not to spy on what your doing really!!

    --
    ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
  11. XRDP by maz2331 · · Score: 1

    Why would I use this instead of XRDP (http://www.xrdp.org/) which uses a client that is natively installed on every Windows box out there already?

    1. Re:XRDP by Desler · · Score: 1

      Because that didn't get a front page Slashvertisement?

    2. Re:XRDP by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      How does xrdp run over high latency connections? Oh, and is it any good with chrome which is brain-dead and uses client-side-rendering as an unchangeable default?

  12. Cool, because remote computing is awesome by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I love using stuff like VNC and having a 15 second lag between my mouse or keyboard click and the screen refresh even on a Gigabit network connection running on an 8 core "thin" client. I mean its been a very long time since I could type faster then the screen can refresh. Its awesome the amount of CPU performance and network speed you need to make your workstation feel like its 1989 all over again.

    --
    I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
  13. Re:Innocent question by Rich0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No. That simply forwards X11, and compresses the data stream. NX does a whole lot more - it implements an X server on the client, and an X client on the server, and re-implements the protocol in a manner that involves fewer round trips.

    Suppose you trigger an X11 call to move a window or something, and it requires two round trips and sends 10 bytes of data. If you simply compress that you might get it down to a few bytes, but that isn't doing much since bandwidth wasn't your problem. You still have to wait for 4x the link latency for the operation to complete.

    All of these solutions try to cut down on the latency problem by running a fake server/client close to the real client/server. Each of these sees a low-latency connection and goes at full speed, and then the software tries to keep the screen as up-to-date as it can within the real-world constraints.

    I can't speak for how this solution compares to the various other ones. I can vouch for the fact that getting it to run will be a PITA since they don't seem to distribute source, and I don't run their one chosen distro.

  14. marketing business by ntropia · · Score: 1

    I agree with the other several comments pointing at the not-so-well hidden slashvertising.
    The person in the interview is the Chief Marketing Office of a company.
    He's been a programmer, sure, but now his job has only marginally to do with programming.

  15. Windows Client or Windows Server by Jonah+Hex · · Score: 1

    Not that everything needs to support Windows, but their hyped specs would be interesting to try on the Windows side of both the data center and home. Right now I tend to use RDP (mainly), LogMeIn, or occasionally something like TeamViewer. Cross platform especially to Android is a great selling point for me and many other Windows admins. Looks like their Linux only tho. - HEX

    --
    Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
    1. Re:Windows Client or Windows Server by Jonah+Hex · · Score: 1

      Correction: Yeah I was reading wikipedia and the linked page on their home site before posting, just went back and saw the big "Get Streamer for PC, etc" button. I'll have to play with it see if I can do Win7 to Android better than LogMeIn. - HEX

      --
      Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
    2. Re:Windows Client or Windows Server by Jonah+Hex · · Score: 1

      Easy install on both Win7 and Android from the official Play/Market, had some connection issues but it worked fairly well. Not sure if the resolution switch on my Win7 machine can be turned off, but I couldn't see the controls of YouTube videos even though they would play both audio (smooth) and video (smooth to jittery). Dealt with multi monitors somewhat OK but the aforementioned resolution switch screwed up the positioning of the windows I keep open on my second monitor. All in all a decent showing and with free audio and faster video a free alternative to LogMeIn's audio option. I'll keep both for now and play with this some more. - HEX

      --
      Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
    3. Re:Windows Client or Windows Server by cbhacking · · Score: 1

      How does it compare to just using Remote Desktop client apps?

      --
      There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
    4. Re:Windows Client or Windows Server by Kal+Zekdor · · Score: 1

      How does it compare to just using Remote Desktop client apps?

      Speed mostly. You can do things like watching video from a remote player or play graphics intensive games without much lag. The response latency is something like 100ms over 4g, so it's not perfect for games that require twitch reflexes, but I've played Civ 5 and XCOM over Splashtop on my Samsung Galaxy S3 rather smoothly.

    5. Re:Windows Client or Windows Server by Jonah+Hex · · Score: 1

      I'll echo the speed improvement in video, although the latency of not being quite sure if your click has been registered sometimes leads to issues where you suddenly have several clicks, say on a scroll bar, suddenly register and do much more than you intended. Speaking of scrolling, I couldn't get two finger scroll bar movement to work from my Android (HTC Supersonic aka EVO 4G) and didn't even try the popup keyboard due to disconnections. To be fair, my wifi signal wasn't the best due to a huge storm while I tested. I'll give it a try for personal use before falling back to LogMeIn. - HEX

      --
      Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
  16. Don't knock Splashtop, it is very cool by brunes69 · · Score: 1

    I first was exposed to Splashtop when it came with my Asus Transformer 101 as a free app. Like a lot of people posting here I was skeptical, not seeing why I need this over XRDP or VNC or any number of other already-existing remote desktop apps.

    Then, I shut up and tried the damn thing. And my jaw hit the floor.

    Full screen streaming video (aka Netflix), WITH sound, WITHOUT stutter, over a 10mbps connection. Try doing that over VNC.

    Splashtop is slick. You need to see it to believe it. They have some neat tech.

  17. Xvnc is so 1990s by tota · · Score: 2

    Seriously, using Xvnc to forward your ssh session just to deal with disconnections? That is so backwards.
    xpra is way better than this, and even NX, despite being old and closed/abandoned is still better than this, and both are seamless.

    I haven't tried splashtop, and it being closed source I doubt I will in a hurry, but I reckon xpra is probably on par with it when it comes to performance - we also use x264 encoding where appropriate - and this is the keyword: where appropriate (like video, fast moving animations, etc), in many other cases it's not..

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    TODO: 753) write sig.
    1. Re:Xvnc is so 1990s by phayes · · Score: 1

      That's pretty much the time-frame...

      When I set that up it was to gain access to HP/OV maps on a Sun SS20 & it was the best solution to the problem available. Now, I'd use a VPN/SSL or an IPSEC client & connect to the server using the appropriate client (Ajax more likely than not but there are still a few X-only apps that I connect to using a VNC client).

      --
      Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
  18. why all the fuss? old news by tota · · Score: 2

    xpra does this on Linux, Windows, OSX and Android (beta).
    It's free and it's open-source.
    It also does x264 encoding when needed and is available for all your machines now without any strings attached.

    --
    TODO: 753) write sig.
  19. Remember and pass by RedHat+Rocky · · Score: 1

    I remember Turbolinux and thanks for notifying. PASS.

    --
    Anything is possible given time and money.
  20. Re:Better than all the others?!? by somersault · · Score: 1

    Yeah after reading his first sentence I'm not even going to read the rest of the post. He's either delusional or trolling.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  21. Couldn't get Splashtop v2 to work by bmullan · · Score: 1

    I installed Splashtop on Ubuntu
    then
    installed splashtop clients on my Windows 7 and my 2 Android tablets and on my Samsung Skyrocket android phone.

    I could not get the connection to work. I'm technical but there is little to no documentation available online other than
    a few FAQs. If you need help you have to submit a ticket online and I suppose you wait until someone gets back to you via
    email...

    I guess I'll wait 6 months and let it bake and then try it again.