[FreeNX-kNX] Free Nx

[Fabian Franz]

> 
> Hi,
> 
> I want to use freenx, but I cant get it to quite do what I want it to do.

I've now re-read all your mail to understand, what the key point is and I think I understood, what you problem is:

The point is that you _want_ to use FreeNX as a cheap VNC replacement.

Sure, FreeNX can do that.

But neither session shadowing nor VNC mode are what you really want if you want to exploit the full power of FreeNX.

Consider logging in from remote:

- You start a new session (unix-kde or unix-gnome)
- You work with it and it runs fast (and even faster than VNC or shadow ;-))
- You decide that you want to go home now, so you press ctrl+alt+t (if in fullscreen mode) or close the window

The session is now suspended and awaits you resume.

Okay, you go home now:

- You login into your desktop and you have another fresh new session
- You startup nxclient
- You connect to the nxserver running on 127.0.0.1
- You have your running session with all open programs again and see like a wonder the desktop stretches until all programs are fitting on screen again.

So now you have a 1600x1200 sessíon. Once you finish working with it, you suspend it again:

- Fullscreen
   - click on the magic pixel, the window is minimized, right click on the taskbar and choose close
   - press ctrl+alt+t
- Windowed
  - close the window
  - press ctrl+alt+t

A dialog comes up that asks you if you want to terminate or suspend the session, you choose to suspend it.

If your server computer is always on, you can also have it running and save the password in nxclient. Then when you connect from remote, the session is automatically suspended and when you come back, you just click on the session desktop icon and it reconnects you again.

If you don't save the password, you will have to put it in again - no deal.

This is the full power usage scenario of NX.

And this way you gain the speed benefits that allow you working comfortable via UMTS and even an old-school modem. And this way you finally have the "stretching" desktop.

Because:

Consider a static image, yes you can resize it or you can crop it or you can scale it, or you can just look at some part of the image, but you are always loosing information. (VNC + Shadow)

Consider a set of loosely coupled "objects", for sure you can resize this and just move some objects to a new place.

I hope you do understand now how you can use NX to achieve what you want.

Basically:

- don't use VNC (that is for Win98 and other special cases)
- don't use Shadow (that is for collaboration work, where one will have a static image)
- don't use RDP (that is for WinXP++)

Use: startup of new sessions and connect to this session the same way (via NXClient) if you run it locally or remote. Always think of a remote "session".

cu

Fabian

PS: I prefer running in windowed mode and having two toolbars (one remote, one locally) so I can quickly switch.