Re: About our effort at NoMachine

Gian Filippo Pinzari wrote in [email protected]:

> [forum] About our effort at NoMachine
> [email protected] [email protected]
> Sun, 23 Mar 2003 00:02:54 +0100
> 
> We spent last three years trying to make X so good as a network   
> computing platform to compete in performances and functionalities   
> with the leading proprietary technologies from Microsoft, Citrix and   
> Tarantella. NX was made available few weeks ago.

I've not seen any other announcement for it....

But I am glad you mentioned it here.

> You can find   
> all the modifications we did to the XFree86 code base as well all   
> the additional components (for example the X compression libraries)   
> at http://www.nomachine.com/dev_sources.php. Not only NX beats   
> those products in performances,

This is incredible! I mean, I tend to believe yoo, now that I tasted a
bit of it! (I can't compare directly to Citrix and Tarantella for lack
of these ressources, but I can compare to VNC and rdesktop experiments
on our LAN.)

Last night I tested it (your NX product) from my workplace. While at the
time our internet connection was quite fast (everybody else had gone home
already, and I was able to download f.e. the new KNOPPIX iso-image at
~180 K/sec) -- it was *still* very impressive how fast your "testdrive"
desktop was responding to my mouseclicks.

I was deeply impressed how even the KDE thumbnail previews in konqueror
appeared instantaniously on any "mouse-over" movement, after I had the
previews activated. (To verify and compare, I also set up a local-LAN,
native-X connection to a neighbouring Linux box, and it definitely felt
a lot slower than the internet connection (passing thru the same LAN)
compared to your remote testdrive box).

> but aims to make X-Window the   
> standard way to deploy applications to users of any OS.   

Does this mean you are also offering an X-Server for the MS-Windows
platforms? I didn't find any mentioning of this on your website, I only
found references to "NX Clients"....

> This is not the place to advertise our software,

You did, and I am glad you did.

> but just let me   
> enumerate some facts:   
>    
> - NX provides X, RDP and VNC desktops trasforming   
>   foreign protocols to X protocol.   

I didn't get VNC to work with the downloaded free NX client
for Linux.  (A TightVNC server is installed on a WinXP box here,
and I can connect to it thru the KDE-3.1-native "krdc" program
with no problem at all.) It would be interesting to see a
direct comparison here.

> - NX is a complete X distribution for MS Windows   

OK -- this seems to answer my above question...

> - NX compresses X protocol (and foreign protocols)   
>   to a degree that makes possible to run complete   
>   desktop sessions on a remote server across the   
>   Internet, even through a modem link. A TestDrive   
>   server is available to the public. You can run a KDE   
>   or GNOME session from there, just to try.   

I can only recommend everybody to try it. In case people
have still doubts about the "overhead" the network transparency
of X imposes on its speed -- here seems to be a striking
proof that the bottleneck must be somewhere else....

> - NX makes any Linux workstation a Terminal Server,   
>   in the MS sense.   

Yes -- I am very impressed about what you created.

> - NX core software is based on XFree86, OpenSSH,   
>   RDesktop, VNC and other OpenSource components.   
>   All X related stuff developed by NoMachine has   
>   been released under GPL.   

Well, probably you didn't have much choice, since you based
everything upon a few Free software components?   ;-)

What other stuff have you developed to be included in NX that
is not under GPL?

> - NX higher level components are commercial software   
>   but any company or good developer could implement   
>   an OpenNX project in a few months, if not weeks.   
>   We know we made a very good job and want to preserve   
>   a competitive advantage, but it's our interest to   
>   have competition. We want to push X and Linux as   
>   a network computing platform.

If more people try and test your product, I am sure the push
will bear quite some weight.

> If X wins, we win.   

What is the secret of the speed you achieved in NX? What kind of
compression do you use?

> NX  embraces many aspects of X technology, from X protocol to   
> libraries and session management. Unfortunately documentation is   
> still poor and mostly oriented to end-users, not developers. We   
> are working hard these days to fix the (many?) bugs that are   
> still around.   
>    
> Too many people are speaking about leaving network transparency  
> behind. Such people confuse poor implementation of X clients and  
> X toolkits with X flaws. I'm leading the NX project and implemented  
> the X compression software (maybe some of you remember mlview), so  
> I probably had time to explore the problem space widely enough.  
> I can tell you about the default terminal application included in  
> one of the two leading Linux desktop environments that's generating  
> so much X traffic to fill a 100Mbps LAN just to scroll a text  
> window, or can tell about a famous Linux distribution that included  
> a small applet to remember you to update your software that is  
> sending PutImage requests for gigabytes. I think that one of the  
> problems of X is that it's just too fast!  

I didn't understand the meaning  of this last sentence.

> In our opinion, reason why people tend to forget or ignore X  
> networking is because of the gap between "the possibility" of network  
> transparency and the "availability" for the average user. NX was born  
> to fill this gap. We believe that once made simple to run X  
> applications everywhere in the world, poor clients will just disappear  
> due to lack of users.  

I didn't understand what you mean with the "poor clients will just
disappear" either...

> During these years I've been partecipating to many discussions  
> about the future of X development. Noboby seemed to be interested  
> to aspects like X compression technology or X session management.  
> These aspects were considered marginal in respect to graphic cards'  
> support, font antialiasing and speed of rendering. I even remember  
> the lead developer of a very good window manager to say that our  
> effort was useless as X would never be able to offer remote  
> computing the way RDP and VNC are doing. Well, considering we are 
> in speech with a leading game console manufacturer and with a 3G 
> network provider for inclusion of X/NX in next generation's mobile 
> phones, I'm happy that he was wrong.  
>  
> Gian Filippo Pinzari, [email protected]  

Cheers,
Kurt