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Hummingbird, Caldera announce alliance
Daveguy wrote to us with the news about Hummingbird has entered into a relationship with Caldera for both marketing and strategic development. Very cool-Hummingbird is going to be working with them on Exceed; HostExplorer; NFS Maestro Server, NFS Maestro
Client, NFS Maestro Gateway and NFS Maestro Solo, all for more support Linux.
Really irritating. Unless you maintain yearly $upport, forget about getting patches (which you NEED). Why don't you get with the 90's???????
Don't forget the other fundamental problem with VNC. It only uses clear text passwords. Who needs security eh?
As for resolution - over a 56k dialup or parts of the office 10Mb LAN I'm running it at resolutions of 800x600 and 1024x768 quite happily - try dropping the colour depth or playing with the encoding methods - they do make a difference. HTH.
Also, you can simply print from Windows to a Linux Samba server and tell Windows that it is a PostScript printer. That way, there is nothing at all to install. On the Linux side, you can convert to PDF.
By default RH 5.x worked great with eXceed as a XDCMP client. It would come it in eXceeds little XDCMP window along with the linux boxen etc. In you eXceed configurations just set up XDCMP "querry" and you should be all set. With version 6.0 Redhat in all its wisdom went with the Gnome Display Manager (gdm) as the default which will not interact correctly with eXceed servers set up for XDCMP querry (or XDCMP direct). This is listed on the gnome page as a bug and has been covered extensively (every other week or so on the Hummingbird mailing lists). The solution. Can the non-compatible gdm, and substitute KDM and you'll be connecting to your Linux boxes once again. Good Luck!
On our setups: PPRO 233 to 450, Matrox Millenium to G200, 64 to 128mb.
eXceed running NT kicks Linux's hind quarters when serving remote X applications.
We run a fairly hefty GIS on SGI Origin 2000s, and have several Linux Servers. We've tried Linux workstation but they simply can not match the speed of the eXceed X server.
My NT workstation with eXceed does a great job of managing all of our unix boxes in a stable, FAST environment.
Course the eXceed is a little pricey $300 per seat, but it sure beats having to maintain a zillion unix workstations....
My Windows 95 laptop remotely runs our unix GIS and admins our Linux file servers, and our FreeBSD ftp/web servers (not just telnet, gui stuff as well).
I have compatibility with just about every PCMCIA card in existence, and access to my windows 95 apps such as Office 2000, my beloved ECCO 4.0 (curse you netmanage) and the hated forms package (Novel informs) dictated by work.
I just slide my mouse to the right edge of the screen, and my screen snaps into the a fullscreen mode of the unix box dejure. Slide it back to the left edge of the screen and back in Windows 95 land.
I am Very impressed with the eXceed X server. On high end hardware (and a 100-Base-T network) it keeps up with our GIS running localy on an SGI Octane. We're not doing any fancy 3d, but we are doing full screen verticle scrolls and plotting zillions of points. My theory is that any hit incurred by the network link is made up for the fact that the X server on the octane is taking more than 30% of the CPU cycles during heavy graphics use (all 2D). Run eXceed remotely and those and you get back 30% of your CPU (I just had a couple of glasses of wine, could explain this better in the morning, OK afternoon)
If you are forced into a mixed environment and Windows Apps are dictated by your work environment, eXceed is the answer.
Get rid of the Gnome Display manager and replace it with KDM or WDM or XDM or whatever. Deals like this ARE important. It means in the future linux MAY be able to play with the big guys....
Get rid of the Gnome Display manager and replace it with KDM or WDM or XDM or whatever.
Deals like this ARE important. It means in the future linux MAY be able to play with the big guys....
I'm not talking local apps, linux is fine for that. But for runing X GUI apps on a remote computer Hummingbird eXcels. This is from actual experience. I've tried SUSE, RH5.x and RH6.0, FreeBSD 2.x and 3.0. on a wide range of hardware platforms (486 to PII). For running our (2D) GIS located remotely on our SGI Origin 2000, None of the above compare to eXceed on NT on similar hardware. What platforms have YOU tested, and what type of Apps do you run remotely????? motjuste@hotmail.com
Mostly XEmacs, but sometimes all kinds of Motif and GTK applications. Remote boxes are Solaris, Linux and FreeBSD.
Is it over local network or over some slow high-latency WAN? If local, something should be wrong with network configuration or hardware or poorly supported network card -- I have never seen significant speed decrease in properly configured network. Or you have Linux box placed behind a slow router. Or you managed to eat the network bandwidth with huge amount of trafic over NFS. Or you managed to configure 100BaseT card in Linux box as 10BaseT -- some old Vortex and other drivers don't recognize fast Ethernet when used with new cards, I have seen this problem at my home network. If the network is "remote" and slow or high-latency, you probably have forgot to enable lbxproxy or ssh X compression on Linux.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
eXceed X client is useless. Put samba on your Linux/unix boxen. eXceed X server is over priced and not that great. The version we have only does NFS2 and performs about as well as linux. Perhaps newer versions are better???
That's if you aren't one of the (typically non-developers) who are being axed.
I also was acquired by Hummingbird. I eventually quit for a better job with more pay.
Good luck though.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
I too believe Exceed is a good product.
But I too worked at Hummingbird. And I do not believe it is an excellent company. I eventually quit for greener pastures.
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Serving remote X apps, our NT/eXceed workstations beat linux every time....
I worked at Hummingbird in the Technical Support division, and I must say it's a good company, and the Exceed product is great. It gets better with every revision, they actually listen to their users and add features/fix bugs. And the stuff that comes with it (inetd, many servers and clients) make using Win9X/NT a lot more comfortable. Great to see them in an alliance that involves a Linux company. Not sure how it will benefit us/them/caldera, but it still makes me smile :) AC
My guess is not likely. The Digital Paper Hummingbird acquired is not allowed to be used within the company (I know this because I tried). My personal theory is that it is being packaged for sale.
[Disclaimer: I worked at Hummingbird. I am not under NDA.]
--
Marc A. Lepage
Software Developer
Maybe I'd care if I still used Windows anywhere. My home and work have standardized on Debian. School is all Unix-based. Most of my friends run Red Hat or NetBSD. I just can't get excited about someone charging insane prices for software that gives Windows functionality that Linux has had for years.
What can Hummingbird offer?
NFS: Samba has this beat hand's down.
XWindows Server: I'll stick with VNC.
Telnet: Haha
A Name: Hummingbird is well known in IT Shops
I guess they have a name to offer...
Have you checked out Zoid.com yet? Zoid.com
I can't imagine what kind of technology this could produce. Exceed already connects to Linux boxes (it's just X-Windows, after all). I always figured Linux would make products like Exceed redundant, since I can load Linux on my PC and get an X-Server for free.
I'm guessing this is just some sort of marketting alliance. Maybe Caldera will start distributing Exceed or something like that.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
????
NFS as been a problem for quite some time now. Is Hummingbird's product any good?
Until then, you can start x with the command "X -query " to get a graphical login screen on a remote system. I sometimes use this at school.
On the question of using linux to serve up such a screen, try "man xdm" - I think that covers it.
Tim
I've been using Exceed 6.1 on my NT Workstation ever since it was released, and I gotta say the X Server kicks ass! It is way faster than X-WinPro and M/X and whatever other shareware X Servers are out there. It has more features, and better support - I e-mailed Hummingbird once and a guy emailed me back the next day with the answer to my question.
:)
I wish you continued success on Exceed, HCL (Hummingbird Communications, Ltd.)!
..almost totally unrelated to this article.
As you said, any Linux box is actually an X server. I can easily display an application running on a certain host, on the display of a linux host. (setting display and xhost) BUT what I miss very much is a chooser that would list all XDMCP broadcasting hosts. Then I take on host from the list, get a graphical (XDM) login screen, and after logging in I get the whole desktop.
I know how to do this with Exceed or ReflectionX, but how do I setup Linux to act like this? And how do I setup Linux to broadcast XDMCP packets to other X servers?
I asked quite many "UNIX guru"s and none gave me a satisfactory answer, maybe Slashdotters would know. Many thanks in advance.
Sigged!
So I finally work for a company (through acquisition, not directly) that makes the good news of Slashdot only to find that I may have to leave in the near future. Nothing serious ... just that our R&D is being moved to the Hummingbird offices in the suburbs of Toronto, a long commute from my apartment downtown. Is there no justice?
... it has nothing to do with this news.
Mark this post down
ian.
ian
Well, in case you hadn't noticed, NFS is pretty poor in Linux - probably the worst implementation of all the well known *nixes.
So, I guess it could use any help that's going.
Yes, it's true that hummingbird make mainly windows software that is agnostic as to the particular kind of unix that it is interfacing. However, Hummingbird make very good software - top quality - and I'm sure their interest in Linux can only be for the good.
-----
This is very, very odd. You definitely severely misconfigured something on Linux box if it manages to run XF86 slower than Exceed.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Hummingbird makes an NFS client for Windows. I don't think they'll be much help for Linux's rather ... problematic ... NFS implementation, except maybe cooperating with it a little better.
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DNA just wants to be free...
Hummingbird makes NFS clients and X-servers for Windows. Linux already has NFS clients and X-servers built in for free... which is quite a bit cheaper than $300/seat/product (the pricing of one license of Exceed 6.1 as of two weeks ago.)
:)
The only good thing I can see coming out of all of this is that the resulting marketing campaign will perhaps make clueless Windows IT managers and sysadmins more aware of the choices they have for Windows clients connecting to linux servers, but if they're that clueless, maybe they should find a different career.
Hummingbird and Caldera are just trying to get more press time.
Not only is the X server not that great,
in that it will mis-size windows, get colours
wrong that work fine on the console of a real
unix box but their NFS server had some problems
too.
Like if you re-inited the NFS server all the
clients would have to reboot or disconnect/
reconnect the share to get it to work again.
I suppose it's better than nothing, but it is very pricey.
Humminbird software I was testing 2 years ago, simulated a printer driver that was automaticaly converting a printed document to the DigitalPaper format.
Can Hummingbird make similar software that enables (Windows) users to print to the "virtual" printer that automaticaly:
convert printed document to XML or PDF
post/upload it to a specified location on a selected Internet/Intranet server?
you guys gave me exactly the info I need!
Sigged!
Where I work we use both Caldera 2.2 and Exceed, and exceed is an excellent product, much better than any other similar product like Reflection X. I'm eager to see what results from this.
-lx
I'm not talking local apps, linux is fine for that. But for runing X GUI apps on a remote computer Hummingbird eXcels. This is from actual experience. I've tried SUSE, RH5.x and RH6.0, FreeBSD 2.x and 3.0. on a wide range of hardware platforms (486 to PII). For running our (2D) GIS located remotely on our SGI Origin 2000, None of the above compare to eXceed on NT on similar hardware. What platforms have YOU tested, and what type of Apps do you run remotely????? motjuste@hotmail.com
My thoughts are that this is a very positive direction for Caldera to pursue in terms of gaining "brain trust", with the addenda that I hope that this results in more code for the rest of us to use, and not just a locked proprietary solution.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
VNC is one of the coolest products on earth. But...... Iv'e found it to be useless on any resolution higher than 640x480, even on our 100-Base-T network (switched). What resolutions do you use it at?????