x2x or other program

[Felipe Alfaro Solana]

On 1/3/07, Marius Gedminas <marius at pov.lt> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 03, 2007 at 10:40:18AM -0900, James R. Jones wrote:
> > I just installed ubuntu on a pc, and looking to use it to do X windows
> > between this system and a red-hat server.  My question is what is the
> > most popular way of doing this.  Should I use x2x, VNC, or are there
> > other programs that are better for the redhat server and ubuntu
> > workstation.
>
> Well, what you you mean when you say you want to use it "to do X
> windows"?

It's the X Window System (with no ending "s")...

> Do you want to launch applications on the server and have them open
> windows on your PC?  Then use SSH X forwarding (ssh -X server app).

This is how I sporadically run applications on remote systems, but the
performance is worse than using VNC and even more worse than using
NX/FreeNX. Thus, I would only recommend using SSH X11 forwarding for
running a single X11 client over a broadband, fast connection for a
short period of time.

> Do you want to use a single mouse and keyboard to control two machines,
> both of them running X on separate monitors, situated side by side?
> Then use x2x.

I tend to prefer Synergy since it's cross platform (it supports Mac OS
X, Windows, Linux and maybe others). However, since Synergy is also
insecure, I always tunnel it over a SSH connection.

> Do you want to connect to a remote desktop over the network, control it,
> and be able to disconnect without stopping the running applications
> there?  Then use VNC.

VNC is painfully slow and insecure (unless encapsulated inside a SSH
tunnel).  NX/FreeNX offers the same kind of functionality and it
performs far better on any kind of connection. Since NX/FreeNX works
over SSH and uses differential, smart X11 protocol compression, it's
more secure and performs much better, even on 64Kbps ISDN links. If
the remote system is a Windows machine, I would rather use RDP/ICA
since NX/FreeNX is only supported currently on Linux and Solaris
(AFAIK).