[ale] ubiquitizing the desktop

Cory T. Echols ctechols at mindspring.com
Fri Dec 20 12:31:46 EST 2002


On 12/20, attriel wrote:
> Hrrm.  This sounds like I'd have to restart VNC every time i reconnected,
> which fails the "prevent me from having to open all 20 windows every time"
> test :/
> 
> Or can I just do the ssh -L thing and "pick up" my desktop?

Leave the VNC server running when you disconnect, and it maintains your
desktop state.  Then you can use ssh to tunnel to the same instance of
the VNC server no matter where you connect from.

> I've got f-secure, but it's a buggy PoS from my usage of it, so I'm trying
> to find out if I can either get a license for the ssh.com client or if
> openssh works reasonbly on windows (i've never liked putty, for some
> reason :/)

OpenSSH works reasonably well on windows for port forwarding.  The real
problem with it is that terminal emulation under cygwin just doesn't
work right for me.  Character mode apps (of which I use a lot) suffer as
a result.

> I remember using VNC to load up a windows desktop over the college
> network, and it was always piss-slow, while the X on the box next to the
> windows one would load right up; that was back in ... 98 or 99, so they
> probably made a few improvements since then :o

It's improved significantly since then, but is nothing like having a
local desktop.  You'll want to look specifically for "tightvnc" on
client and server.  VNC supports several different compression
mechanisms, and "tight" seems to be the best one.

X and VNC use significantly different methods of communication between
client and server.  Without going into a lot of detail, apps written
with more recent GUI toolkits (like gtk+) seem to be snappier over VNC.

-- 
Cory T. Echols          | "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that
ctechols at mindspring.com | article of the Constitution which granted a right
                        | to Congress of expending, on objects of
                        | benevolence, the money of their constituents...."
                        | 	--James Madison
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