[ale] VNC

[Dan Newcombe]

On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, tom hawks wrote:
> I was curious if anyone has used VNC very much and if
> so, is it worth using?

We've been using it for years.  As long as you are not expecting
instantaneous feedback and accept that you are shoving a whole screen over
a "not-big-enough" pipe, it works great.

I have had some problems where an NT4 machine will get so hosed you can't
connect, but since you can't login locally, I guess you can't blame VNC.

As someone else mentioned, TightVNC works a little better over slow
connections.

If you are just needing to connect to remove Windows desktops, I'd
recommend Terminal services if possible (or rdesktop under Linux) as it's
faster.

The only annoyance about X and VNC is that you normally have to run Xvnc
as a headless server - ie. you don't see anything on the local screen just
the vnc session.  Makes sense on big iron, but if you want to be able to
remotly access your desktop, it doesn'w work without some fighting (though
supposedly the latest KDE has VNC built in.

Also, something that is very similar, but text only, is screen - which
lets you disconnect from a terminal session and reconnect later.

VNC and screen are both great if your connection is slightly flakey and
are worried about crashing during a long running process.  You just resume
where you left off.  Makes it a lot easier to do remote work.

	-Dan
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