[dot] Report: FreeNX on LinuxTag

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1120050176/

From: Daniel Molkentin <molkentin at kde.org>
Dept: awesome-stuff
Date: Wednesday 29/Jun/2005, @08:02

Report: FreeNX on LinuxTag
==========================

   One of the "missing LinuxTag stories" should be telling about the
FreeNX presentation [http://www.linuxtag.org/vcc/details.pl?id=241] 
done by Fabian  Franz and Kurt Pfeifle
[http://www.pl-forum.de/NB2/images/indiv/lt2004_pfeifle_franz.jpg] in
the biggest hall with 500 visitors present.  The talk culminated in the
official release of FreeNX-0.4.1 [http://freshmeat.net/projects/freenx/]
(download here) [http://download.berlios.de/freenx/freenx-0.4.1.tar.gz].

     During the full hour of live demoing, not only did they showcase
very fast remote GUI  access to various KDE desktops. Amongst these was
a brandnew Kubuntu [http://www.kubuntu.org/] installation on an IBM 
mainframe derivative (a Power5/PPC64 [http://www.openpower.org/]
machine) running a very nice polished KDE 3.4.1. Kurt and Fabian had
recently ported FreeNX to that platform.  The two also had obvious fun
with running "KQemu with a Windows 2000 OS inside the remote NX  to
Kubuntu-on-Power5 session" in front of their puzzled audience.  Other
demos included the new  1.5.0 NoMachine NX core libraries' (GPL'd)
snapshot [http://www.nomachine.com/sources/development/] that now gives
lightning fast  remote access also single application windowed sessions,
and seamless, true zero-config  CUPS printing.

     Kurt mentioned the fact that one of the accepted Google Summer of
Code Bounties is a new KDE NX Client to be deeply integrated into KDE,
which he hopes will be successfully  completed within 3 months.

     The release  announcement
[http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/freenx-knx/2005-June/001416.html] on the
FreeNX-kNX  mailing list
[https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/freenx-knx/] has this to say
about the newly supported features, amongst many other things:
  stable rootless nxagent: This feature adds roundtrip suppression to
single application window mode sessions. (Before, single applications
benefitted from NX compression and  NX caching only -- thus they were
"faster" than any other remote GUI with  single apps, but slower than a
full-featured desktop session). To activate, use the
ENABLE_ROOTLESS_MODE parameter in node.conf. (Single applications like
the KDE groupware client "Kontact" on Windows  for example have never
been so fast.) fullscreen toggle mode / seamless resize with mouse drag:
This feature enables to resize the NX window by dragging its borders
with the mouse. It also allows to press "[Ctrl]+[Alt]+[f]" which then
toggles between fullscreen and normal windowed mode. Works _just_ great
(at least from Linux NX Client to Linux FreeNX server). applications
keep running while in suspended state: Before, all contained
applications where sent to sleep upon the suspending of a session. (This
made f.e. your compilation running in a konsole window pause, or your
IRC log containing gaps, or your kmail program not reacting when you
tried to shut it down with dcop commands). Now, all applications stay
awake and keep running when a session is suspended.
     Kurt hinted at the fact that (Free)NX servers (or peer-to-peer NX
sessions in between developers, translators, artists and documentation
writers) could be  a major win for future KDE development. He showed
also, how currently the OpenUsability project
[http://www.openusability.org/] uses NX  technology for its support of
various Open Source development efforts (amongst  which are not only
KDE, but also several Gnome applications) -- albeit their hardware is by
far insufficient and currently only serves as a  "proof-of-concept"
purpose for the viability of the basic concept.
[http://conference2004.kde.org/cfp-devconf/kurt.pfeifle-nxaccelerateskdedev.php]