Has anyone come across X applications re-engineered for low bandwidth networks, This in the context of thin clients.
Low bandwidth or high latency ?
This is the usual response you can expect when asking this question. Bandwidth and latency are part of the same equation. Both bandwidth and latency are outstanding problems when running X applications over the Internet (and they are not the only problems, as there is still security, manageability, etc.).
To have a proof of that you would need a X application that doesn't need roundtrips at all, so you would be able to test the bandwidth variable in isolation. nxagent is that application.
http://www.nomachine.com/documentation/building-components.php
Like Xnest, on which it is based, it is a X server for its clients and a X client for the real server, but it is a almost complete rewrite optimized to run as a component of the NX proxy system.
nxagent eliminates all the roundtrips, except the very few that are needed at its startup (not at startup of any of its clients). Thus, if you think that only latency is a problem, running nxagent you should have a clear idea of the performance you will get when all the remaining X applications in the world will be equally optimized for high latency networks. Unfortunately if you try nxagent over ssh -C, instead of running it through the usual NX compression, you will find that bandwidth matters.
Having eliminated the roundtrips, X applications will still be painfully slow. If you want to ensure really good performance, you have to provide really good comp- ression.
Enter NX now.
NX solves the latency problem. Once solved the latency problem it treats bandwidth as part of the picture and tries to achieve that good compression.
http://www.nomachine.com/documentation/NX-XProtocolCompression.php
The NX proxy system rewrites the wire X protocol to be efficient on low bandwidth, high latency networks. It is not a reengineering of the X protocol, because it uses the the X protocol, but it is a layer managing the differences between X over local socket communication and X over the network.
> with this combination, a fast modem connection (say 33Kbps) > isn't painful in terms of bandwidth.
Unfortunately with this combination X -is- painful, otherwise Andrew C Aitchison would have not asked this question ;-). Hope more people in the X community will dedicate some time at trying NX in future. I really think that it could unveil some misconception that are slowly becoming facts given for assured.
/Gian Filippo.
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