[FreeNX-kNX] !M NX on Ubuntu and wishlist environment variables at startup.

[Gian Filippo Pinzari]

Nicholas Lee wrote:
> apt-get install freenx is pretty hard to beat.

You assume that everybody is running Debian, or a Debian compatible
system, that may be not the case. Many have noted that Linux promised
that we would have escaped the DLL hell, but has shown that the depend-
ency hell is not any better. In general I don't think that an OS must
be modeled on top of a package management system. Package managers are
the solution to the lack of standardization of the system interfaces.
I'd better look at removing the problem, instead of working at solutions
that are headed to become everyday more complex without providing the
answer that the users want. There are proofs in the consumer world
that people are perfectly comfortable with software that installs
without having to care about a complex dependency system, but I don't
want to enter a holy-war, so I'll not comment further.

> Its main issue was finding the system config:
> 
> NX> 700 WARNING: Cannot find a systemwide initialization login shell
> initialization file;
> NX> 700 WARNING: The following line won't be automatically executed upon login:
> NX> 700 if ( -r /usr/NX/scripts/nxenv.csh ) then
> NX> 700   source /usr/NX/scripts/nxenv.csh
> NX> 700 endif
> 
> I just overkilled and added 
> 
> if [ -f nxenv.sh ] ; then
>   . /usr/NX/scripts/nxenv.sh
> fi
> 
> to /etc/profile
> 
> Seems to work. :D

All in all, it doesn't look the PITA you implied in your first mes-
sage ;-). Additionally, nxsetup is a shell script so it should be
fairly easy to fix, in the case somebody is really motivated to do
so.

> It would be nice if there was some way to run a script and bash some
> environment variables to the Xserver before it was first started and
> maybe every time it was resumed.

Yes, there should be a way to run pre and post scripts. We want to do
that since a long time. I assume that if nxserver developers didn't
implement this, so far, it is only because the lack of time.

> Actually I think this would be very useful, as you could do things
> like have your SIP trunked re-routed automatically to the phone
> sitting next to your terminal.

Yes. This is the type of applications we would like to empower. It
should be easier to plug custom developed scripts into NX. There is
a sort of plug-in system and some functions are delegated to outside
scripts already (see nxuexec and the scripts/restricted direrectories).
We are far from having a modular system, though. Such a modular system
would greatly fuel the development of common features and extensions
between FreeNX and NoMachine.

You must understand that, to remain in business, we must try our best
to leverage what we have and offer a solution that works for the main-
stream. We must also be very careful at not breaking things for the
installed base. Very often we have to work on stuff that is quite
uninteresting, from the point of view of the advanced user, but very
important for the general public. We have lot of developers working
at fixing NX to run old XT, Tcl/Tk and OpenView applications that
nobody care (other than those who are paying for them). The "you have
the sources, fix it yourself" mantra doesn't work for these people
and we can't count on the help of the FreeNX developers (as of yet)
because FreeNX developers are most often in the "advanced users"
group. This slows down the introduction of new features, because we
don't really have the resources to run a development and a maintenance
project at the same time. Our current focus is on stabilizing the
OSS core and make it ready for the future developments. It is important
that we start drawing a picture of what will be the next NX, but it
is also important that we leverage what we have to attract new users.

/Gian Filippo.