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Gate One Will Support X11: Fast Enough To Run VLC In Your Browser
Riskable writes "Ever seen a remote desktop tool that's fast/efficient enough to play back video? Gate One will soon have that capability via the forthcoming X11 support (as demonstrated in the video). I am posting this to Slashdot looking for suggestions and feedback as to how I should move forward with it before I solidify the architecture, API, and even the business end of it (making money). I'll be watching the thread and replying to comments (as I have time). Also, if you're interested you can sign up to be notified when it's available."
We've posted a few stories about Gate One previously.
We talking VNC or RDP? Whether RDP can be significantly improved--I don't know. However, I also find it happens to work very well, even across large distances. There is some lag, but very manageable with US-based ISP's. If you have a low latency, high bandwidth network, thin clients work just like a local desktop to any normal human being for word and web-browsing.
VNC, on the other hand, does not work this way. Despite having very low latency and high bandwidth, my VNC connection from just inside my house is terrible. There's significant lag and other problems. Across wide network links? It's horribly painful to use.
I'm not sure if you were describing the state of RDP or VNC, but given the article is about VNC, there's a tremendous amount of improvement that is possible in that protocol. RDP demonstrates this. We should realize this and make VNC closer (or better) than RDP.
-=Lothsahn=-
Remote Desktop Connection (RDP) connected to a Windows 2012 server back-end is very capable of streaming video. It's kind of shocking how fast it is.
I've used some hosted remote desktop services over the past few years that are nearly indistinguishable from launching and using local applications - over a garden variety 10Mb/sec cable internet connection.
I used to also think that "they'll never overcome latency to the point where it's running at sufficient speed to feel like it's a local app" but at this point feel like that is a wrong assumption.
Try tigerVNC and get back to me.
You can run 3d HD games over it.
If you recognize that you are in fact streaming video, you can buffer that video ahead and keep the rest of the display nice and interactive. There's no reason you can't divide the display you are remote serving into several sections and give them each their own update/caching/buffering strategies.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
It's not necessarily distance that's the problem, but the number of hops in between. As a simplified example, if you were 1000 miles apart but had a direct fiber line with powerful equipment between locations, your latency would be less than if you were 10 miles apart but had 10 routers in the middle (I'm ignoring distance limits on the fiber and assuming it's one line). The routers have to process each packet, adding a bit to the round trip time for each hop. Not much time, to be sure (a few milliseconds), but it's there. And the more you're transmitting (1080p video, for example), the slower it will seem. The default ping packets in Windows aren't particularly big, and can be slightly misleading if you're looking for slowdowns regarding large transfers.
Your architects are right, though, in that "distance" is a good way to put it. It also depends on how your company is laid out - VPN links between offices? point-to-point T1? Etc...