[FreeNX-kNX] FreeNX usability / promoting NX

[hc rodrian]

Hi,

I came across the discussion on the usability of NX or FreeNX, 
respectively, and the question whether this mailing list is helpful or 
not. As I did some testing of FreeNX in the last months I would like to 
provide my experiences and ideas.

1) I experimented with using FreeNX on a 4-processor machine for 
providing remote desktops for a couple of interested students. First of 
all, NX is an amazing technology (though I had to realize that it is a 
bad idea to use NX at higher bandwidths if you only have a volume rate - 
should be obvious, but enthusiasm and pure fun can make you stop 
thinking...). However, in terms of stability, I have to agree to some of 
the remarks in the last posts: FreeNX in connection to windows clients 
(I only tried that combination) is definitely not as stable as one would 
wish. Resuming sessions may and may not work, connecting to the server 
works almost every time, but not in all cases, and sometimes there are 
'ghost'-processes left behind on the server which you have to kill 
manually. Moreover, upgrading to the latest versions of server and 
client were a desaster (see below). So far, I think (and hope) that 
these problems will not occur with the commercial product of NoMachine. 
Actually, I decided to buy a 4-processor-license as soon as I will have 
the funding.
2) FreeNX is a great effort to make this kind of technology available to 
the masses. As it is free, I do not expect it to be as professional as a 
product for which I have to pay $$. Thank you very much!
3) In the beginning of my tests, I wrote to this list and found the 
answers accurate, professional and helpful. Thank you very much!
4) I think NX is not as wide-spread as it could and should be. Again, 
however, I have to agree to some part of the previous posts: using 
FreeNX is not really easy (as can be seen from this list). I felt that 
one problem is that there seems to be no accurate and up-to-date (!) 
help for dummies on how to setup the latest version of FreeNX server on 
the latest versions of the well-known linux distributions. E.g, I went 
back to the "old" NX server and the "old" NX client (which unfortunately 
is no longer available from NoMachine) because the "new" client and 
server caused bigger problems than I was able (due to time restrictions) 
and willing to solve. I suspect that I could have found the solution 
somewhere in the list, but I have to admit that having to read hundreds 
of E-Mails hoping that someone had the same problems and somebody else 
posted some solution was beyond my time limits (ok, I could have asked 
the questions without prior research, but that is not fair, is it?).

Therefore my suggestions:
a) I think it would considerably help to promote NX if the list would be 
compiled into an up-to-date, comprehensive FAQ posted on the FreeNX page.
b) Providing really up-to-date how-to documents for the big Linux 
distributions on the FreeNX page (perhaps also pointing out more 
experimental features which one should not rely upon) might be helpful 
for many people.
c) In industry, Windows is the most widespread operation system. I think 
that "Windows NoMachine client - Linux FreeNX server" is a combination 
which should be clearly addressed to promote both Linux and NX.

Sorry for the long contribution. Hope you find it useful.

Best regards
Hans-Christian