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Ask Slashdot: Open Source Remote Application Access?

Posted by timothy on from the over-there-but-over-here dept.

First time accepted submitter taikedz writes "Citrix Xenapp with Receiver/Metaframe allows publishing individual applications installed on a Windows server to users on remote machines. These applications open in their own windows, along side others as if they were installed locally. I am looking to do the same at home, with free software, publishing applications from Mac, Linux, and Windows machines (and yes, I've verified the license agreements for the apps I am going to do this with!). Up until now, the only alternatives I have found are full-on remote desktop login, not seamlessly-integrated. Can you recommend any tools that can achieve the goal of remote individual application access across platforms for free or at low-cost?"

4 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. SSH + TCP port forwarding by aglider · · Score: 4, Informative

    Read the friendly manual!

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    Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
  2. You didn't mention speed or efficiency by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, X11.

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  3. X forwarding by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This has been a feature of X since before X11. It's even easier to use now with SSH supporting X forwarding. And if you're using it across the public internet, you can get good performance with FreeNX.

    Unfortunately, this is all likely to go away if X is deprecated in favor of Wayland.

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  4. Two easy solutions by Burning1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    First, if you haven't already read up on Xwindows networking model, you really should. X natively supports what you're requesting, and has for decades. In most cases, it's as trivial as opening a ssh connection to the remote machine, using the -X flag. E.g. 'ssh -X remotehost'

    If you need to support Windows applications, you can use RDP in seamless mode. Newer RDP clients for windows support this natively, with a little configuration work. There is some support in the linux RDP client, but when I tried it about a year ago, it required a special helper application to work. Be aware that RDP is no where near as fast as Citrix.

    Finally, if you simply want Windows applications to seamlessly integrate with a linux desktop or visa versa, VMWare player/workstation supports a seamless virtualization mode. It would not surprise me if KVM or Xen have a comparable feature, but I haven't played with them on the desktop long enough to know.