Citrix-Like Server for Linux? 70
Devil's BSD asks: "My school is planning to add remote desktop access so that people can easily access a school computer from home. However, with the financial situation in our Kentucky being what it is, using Citrix Metaframe for Unix/XP and buying all the software licenses necessary will be extremely hard. And with the state department of education (ironically named KDE) very pro-Microsoft, VNC is out of the question. Is there a free or low cost Citrix-like software suite that can give access to a remote desktop and compress the datastream to be able to work on a 56k modem like Citrix's ICA does?"
Re:Uhhh.... (Score:2)
Sweet jebus, have you ever tried running X over a
56k modem? It's slower then owl spit...
What's a faster way to run X over a slow network connection?
Re:Uhhh.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Citrix slow on 33.6? (Score:1)
LBX is fine on 33.6 (Score:2)
Re:Uhhh.... (Score:2)
Re:Uhhh.... (Score:1)
Re:Uhhh.... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is your budget?
What is your existing infastructure?
What is your timeline?
What the heck does "And with the state department of education (ironically named KDE) very pro-Microsoft, VNC is out of the question."
So you are saying that every single application running on your desktops is purchased from Microsoft? Why the heck does pro-microsoft == anti-vnc. VNC is a wonderful, free and cross platform tool for remotely displaying workstation content, that happens to have a pure web client version (great for people at home!).
If your school ties their balls to MS in such a way -- why not just use Remote Desktop or call up and ask your local Microsoft Rep what he/she recommends.
Why is this a goddamn ask slashdot?
*sigh*
Chill... (Score:1)
I'm not sure where in that question you get the need to know the information that the person requested. Now - if you were the consultant that was hired to handle the project, that would be a different story, but he just asked for advice.
Another user below mentioned LTSP for which more information can be found at the LTSP project's web site [ltsp.org].
There is a K12 LTSP project as well here [k12ltsp.org].
As fo
Re:Chill... (Score:2)
I think that's what's confusing people - it's a simple question with a simple answer - "yes, it's called VNC." But he says he can't use VNC because his boss is pro-microsoft, a non-sequitor. So there's more to the story than he felt like including in his Ask Slashdot. I think that's what pissed off the guy you're replying to.
Reading between the lines... (Score:3, Informative)
In which case he wants rdesktop [rdesktop.org]. You can run it on thin boxes in about 16MB OK, more if you want to cache fonts and stuff, down to about 8 if you take the time to optimise the living daylights out of everything.
If the place is so pro Microsoft, (s)he should fetch a copy of the GNUwin2 ISO [gnuwin.epfl.ch] and install stuff from it everywhere he's allowed to. And tell the nice workers about it. When the next unheralded MS virus invasion happens, they'll still have to
Why is VNC out of the question? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Why is VNC out of the question? (Score:2)
Well, it depends. Certainly on linux (possibly on windows with cygwin) you *can* get remote desktops using vnc - you can even spawn new sessions from xinetd as required. Just type "vncserver from a command prompt".
In fact, if you're doing remote X stuff and are running an app that you do not want to di
VNC is not out of the question. (Score:4, Informative)
Oops. That would be "windows to windows" (Score:1)
Re:VNC is not out of the question. (Score:1)
Re:VNC is not out of the question. (Score:2)
Re:VNC is not out of the question. (Score:2)
Re:VNC is not out of the question. (Score:2)
Re:VNC is not out of the question. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:VNC is not out of the question. (Score:2)
Re:VNC is not out of the question. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:VNC is not out of the question. (Score:2)
Well, and it would be "putzy" on a 100mbit or 1Gbit LAN as well. VNC is slow on Windows out of the box because it has to guess about where screen updates occur--there is no official API. But, if you look around, there is a DLL that hooks drawing functions and makes VNC very fast even on Windows.
Re:VNC is not out of the question. (Score:1)
After a comparison of several commerical products at work, including both Exceed and VNC, VNC won out. Considering you can run VNC through a tunnel SSH connection, that could also setup your compression, what is so "out" about it?
Maybe, LTSP? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Maybe, LTSP? (Score:3, Informative)
LTSP is great, but I don't think it will do the 56k modem thing. It's basically X11 and a few other standard Linux services linked together in a rather clever way, so the client-server networks overheads are the same as for X11, plus running XFS over tcp, plus serving files... with ten machines, a 10mbit network boils, our current 100mbit one gets congested on occasions, and I'm thinking of getting a gigabyte backbone from the hub to the server in the near future.
What you can do is run rdesktop, mentioned
Why just exclude VNC? (Score:2)
Doesn't that same logic rule out Linux as well?
I would think that VNC or a variation of it running on Linux would solve the problem nicely with the support of multiple virtual desktop running on a single machine.
http://www.realvnc.com [realvnc.com]
http://www.tightvnc.com [tightvnc.com]
Screw what the boss says... (Score:4, Insightful)
VNC is the answer. Your boss is a moron if the only reason is "it's not MS".
Re:Screw what the boss says... (Score:1)
MS = = $$$$$$$$$$
VCN = = $
Re:Screw what the boss says... (Score:1)
Re:Screw what the boss says... (Score:2)
Re:Screw what the boss says... (Score:2)
The MS issue is that the licence says you must use an XP machine to talk to XP - you can use vnc to do that if you want. See Here [infoworld.com] for details.
For these guys, I guess that you'd have to confirm the OS of all remote desktop users and give them the same one as their remote desktop - XP home, XP professiona
Re:Screw what the boss says... (Score:2)
What that ammounts to is the damand that in order to manage a Microsoft server, you must employ a Microsoft client. This is a clear case of a product in two wildly different market segments (desktop and server) which is forcing adoption of one (actually forcing you not to swtich off of one) in order to use the other.
Bastards. Dirty, rat bastards.
X11 (Score:4, Insightful)
Was plain old X11 even considered? If it was, and it didn't meet the criteria, then in what way was it found lacking? Too heavy for a 56k dialup connection? I didn't think it was any worse than Citrix there, but I could be wrong about that. You should be able to get a secure connection via SSH tunneling, and that connection can be compressed if necessary -- there is copious documentation for all this, so I won't repeat how to set it up here, but it's very commonly done.
The biggest "obstacle" I can think of is that people will need the X11 server software on their end, but again this isn't a very big deal: there are free versions for Windows (Cygwin [cygwin.com] and MacOSX (Apple's X11 beta [apple.com], XDarwin [xdarwin.org]), and of course it is the standard graphical layer for Linux & related systems.
So really, what needs to happen if you go forward with this idea is for some work to go into packaging it up for students & faculty to use, and giving enough training to show how to get going with it. There are a lot of resources out there that can be relied upon, should the state choose to take this path. It sounds to me like what you need most is for someone to make the pitch to those who are making the decisions.
Re:X11 (Score:2, Informative)
Was plain old X11 even considered? If it was, and it didn't meet the criteria, then in what way was it found lacking? Too heavy for a 56k dialup connection? I didn't think it was any worse than Citrix there, but I could be wrong about that.
VERY wrong about that. ICA as a protocol is thin enough that you can run a session over as little as a 14.4k modem connection (I've done it) and have most apps usable, and things get almost spritely on 56k. It's VERY good at caching, optimizing, and generally being q
Re:X11 (Tarantella) (Score:1)
And no, I dont work for them, but I did like their product on Solaris and their tech staff seems to be very unix-saavy, even though they support Windows too.
Re:X11 (Score:2)
Sure, plenty of things do. You can get lower bandwidth than ICA still with things like Display PostScript and Java. And, in fact, there are even hacks that will take GUIs and expose them through HTML.
ICA is just one point on a continuum of choices for remote application display; it's tradeoffs are that it needs to take standard Windows applications and squeeze them through a low bandwidth pipe. X11, VNC, LBX, DXPC, etc., all make other kinds of tradeoffs.
Re:X11 (Score:2)
Re:X11 (Score:2)
Re:X11 (Score:2)
We used to have users doin g documentation with Interleaf (a professional page-layout type publishing program) and running CAD applications and we could squeeze 4 X-terminals comfortably down a 64Kb/s line to the server.
Re:X11 (Score:2)
Re:X11 (Score:2)
I agree, a noisy phone line is bad - mostly because the error correction doesn't mix well with the PPP or whatever you are throwing up it. A clean line seems to be ok though.
Use SSH (Score:2)
From linux you can do:
ssh -C machine.domain
xterm &
Re:X11 (Score:2)
Some reasons why X is not a good idea in this case:
Re:X11 (Score:1)
I'll help here:
Server side:
Uncomment line in sshd_config, enabling:
X11Forwarding yes
Client side (Unix, GNU/Linux):
% ssh -2CX host (2 = SSH2, C = enable compression, X = enable X11 forwarding)
% startx
Client side (Windows):
Get Cygwin/XFree86 [cygwin.com]. It has an easy insta
X11 wasn't designed for dialup, but LBX was (Score:2)
You don't want to run plain X11 over dial-up--it wasn't designed for that. The X11 protocol was designed to be fast for local connections and fast networks. That's why X11 performs comparable to procedure-call APIs like those found in Windows for local graphics.
However, there are two X11-based protocols designed for dial-up: LBX and DXPC (check on
CrossOver OfficeServer Edition (Score:2, Informative)
Runs M$ Office on a Linux 'terminal server'. You still have to buy the M$ Office licenses and the OfficeServer software, but it's hella-cheaper than Citrix.
100 users for Crossover OfficeServer is something like $5,000 where Metaframe XP (with Windows CALS and Terminal Server CALS) for 100 users would be something like $60,000. You do the math
Tarantella (Score:5, Informative)
rdesktop (Score:2)
http://www.rdesktop.org/
You sill need to pay microsoft for remote
access licenses on server side thought.
vnc is great (Score:2)
the idea is to run vncserver on a 7x24 server class box. bsd is good and even linux is ok [grin].
then run your viewer on some rebootable box. ie, a box that you might reboot into windoze or whatever. in my living room, where I don't want a box running all the time (noise), I shut my 'viewer box' down when I'm done for the nite. I just exit vncviewer and shutdown the box. then the next day I boot it up, run vncviewer again and my 'desktop' is t
Can you explain the constraints again? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, if you are trying to avoid paying for the ICA client, but you are willing to pony up the money to Microsoft, then there is a client named rdesktop [sourceforge.net] that does the Microsoft remote desktop protocol (RDP). It was reverse Engineered from scratch, and supposedly is reasonable stable. So now, you can run this on Linux desktops, but you still have to pay Microsoft a bunch of money for the apps (just because they are all running on one server, doesn't get you out of paying them for as many concurrent users as there could be).
Now, if you have to have Microsoft Applications, but not a Microsoft desktop, you might want to see the guys who develop the Crossover stuff. Now you can run a lot of Windows Apps on a Linux box that has a Wine processes running remote. The product is called Crossover Office Server Edition [codeweavers.com] I don't follow the legality of this, so get a real good lawyer before you try it out. looks [codeweavers.com] like CodeWeavers is saying, you get to pay Microsoft a bunch of money.
This is probably roughly the same quality, but now your talking about using X for your network transport. Which is a little awkward for remote users, as they will have to run an X server. Cygwin ships with one for Windows desktops.
Now, if all you want is a bunch of desktops you can run remote from a linux server. Get a bunch of machines that can act like X-Terminals. A bunch of old cheap PC's with a good NIC will do the job, as long as the NIC will do PXE, or netbooting of some flavor. Go get PXES [slashdot.org] from sourceforge and run it. It will net boot, and run rdesktop, a Citrix ICA client, or run as an X Terminal for you. It is very good, and runs pretty well. This is what the city of Largo, FL does. They claim it's great, grand, glorious and best of all, dirt cheap.
I don't understand your requirements. They appear to be directly contradictory. We have to have cool stuff from Microsoft, but we can't afford to pay for it. My guess is the cost of the Citrix Clients isn't nearly as bad as the cost of all of the copies of MS apps you sound like you want to run. Anyways, these are some pretty decent ways to get remote desktops. However, with Microsoft, you don't really get a break on the pricing that way, it does simplify administration of the desktop, and makes replacing broken hardware much easier.
Kirby
Why not just use windows terminal services? (Score:1)
You still have the cost issue though, because you still have to pay for a license for _Each concurrent client_ for _each piece of software_.
That is to say, if you want to let 10 people connect to a terminal server, you have to buy 10 client licenses (cheap), and (for instance) 10 copies of office (!!), 10 copies of adobe photoshop (!!) and so on.
If you want them to be able to access a single machine, and only one person pe
lbx proxy (low bandwith) (Score:1)
http://www.paulandlesley.org/faqs/LBX-HOWTO.html [paulandlesley.org]
Here is an howto on a low bandwith proxy. it's included with x, no modules to add on, works over a phone line, and has a kitchen sink.
LBX (Low Bandwidth X) is an X server extension which performs compression on the X protocol. It is meant to be used in conjunction with X applications and an X server which are separated by a slow network connection, to improve display and response time
Reply (Score:2)
Re:Reply (Score:2)
I don't see why the state would block VNC but not Cyrix.
Get a life.
X11 displays are lighter than VNC (Score:2)
VNC is cheap. It works. It's easy.
It's also a network hog, even compared to X-11. KDE or Gnome running on X turn it into a hog, but if you're running a pure window manager instead of integrated behemoth, you'll find X is relatively low traffic and quite snappy.
Personally I find that VNC performs over a 10MBit ethernet runs about the same as an X-11 terminal at the end of a dialup line. (I use VNC for slaving Win boxen from my main Linux dev box, the X-11 access was to provide support for a customer
Pro Microsoft is Anti Education (Score:2)
Why Remote Desktop?? (Score:1)
Student's limited by a dialup will not be able to use a remote desktop and still be able to get things done before bedtime..
PCAnywhere ? (Score:1)
You can acces a remote PC, but also transfer files. It uses an efficient compression method, and can use encryption.
NX from NoMachine (Score:1)
I found it because it came up on the new forum@XFree86.org -- here is the first post of that thread: http://xfree86.org/pipermail/forum/2003-March/000 3 28.html
And here are two excerpts:
<quote>
We spent last three years trying to make X so good as a network computing platform to compe
ssh? (Score:1)
New Moon Systems (Score:1)