Re: 'NX' for Zaurus?

On Tuesday 30 September 2003 04:16 am, Hamish Marson wrote:

 > Bill Kendrick wrote:
 > >So, when will we have it? ;^)
 > >
 > >  Proxy Servers Lighten Up X
 > >  http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/26/1242200
 > >
 > >  LinuxDevices.com is reporting on a compression and differential proxy
 > >  scheme for X that makes it practical to xhost rich applications like
 > >  Mozilla or a whole UNIX desktop over a 9.6Kbps connection (think cell
 > >  phone with GSM modem). The company developing NX has a neat test
 > > drive set up -- and it is way zippier than VNC. There'll be a paper
 > > about it at the next LinuxKongress in Saarbrucken, Germany, and a call
 > > is out to OSS programmers to build on the GPL'ed NX library.
 >
 > Is this very different from NCD's xremote stuff they used to do in the
 > early 90's? That was supposed to work over a 9600bps modem as well with
 > no problems. (In fact I saw it demonstrated and it looked fine at the
 > time, although it wasn't running a desktop over it of course :)

This may or may not be the same app.  Here is what I found. dxpc is limited, 
but their own admissions at http://www.vigor.nu/dxpc/

<quote>
dxpc is an X protocol compressor designed to improve the speed of X11 
applications run over low-bandwidth links (such as dialup PPP 
connections)."

>From the FAQ:
What kind of performance can be expected from dxpc?

 The speedup that you will experience depends entirely on the type of 
application that you are running. For example, an xterm or emacs is quite 
usable over a 28.8 analog modem, but Netscape would be near impossible. 
<endquote

Well, the NPX folks claim a number of issues, security and ability to run 
any application, including browsers or a full UNIX desktop, are the major 
differences I see, reading both web sites.

<quote>
NPX FAQ:
But isn't X11 doing this already? 

X11 can of course be used in a way that it will provide Terminal Server 
functionalities. The Linux Terminal Server Project provides all the tools 
needed to make Linux an inexpensive Terminal Server. Unfortunately such a 
service would be unusable over the public Internet, and probably also over 
a complex WAN.

 There are many reasons behind these considerations. First of all X lacks 
session support and user account management. XDM has limitations that are 
likely to discourage any security conscious system administrator from 
opening it to a large user base and, finally, sessions would run so slow to 
be considered a joke. X in such scenarios is so bad that another successful 
project, VNC, is leading the camp due to its ability to address some of 
theses limitations.

 These are the considerations that drove NX development. NoMachine is trying 
to address all the problems that prevent X-Window from becoming as 
widespread as the Web, by learning from the Web. --- NX users, for example, 
cannot login to a remote server outside of a NX session. They are system 
users, but they don't have a system password. Sessions can be run as 
anonymous users, etc. This enables controlled access to server's resources.

 From another point of view, NX extent is much wider. We aim to let users 
access applications anywhere in the world, using any network condition. We 
aim to build on top of X-Window a software architecture similar to a 
peer-to-peer network where people are providing and receiving computing 
resources under the form of X applications and related network services.
<endquote>

Tim

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