On Sun, Nov 21, 2004 at 11:54:43PM +0200, Yedidyah Bar-David wrote: > Hi all, > > Please excuse the somewhat-offtopic subject. I think it concerns and > interests quite many people here. > > I want something like the following (no real, thought out design, > just a sketch): > > A client machine (think about a thin, maybe netbooting diskless PC > one, but doesn't have to be) somehow gets a login screen from a > remote server. This login dialog allows the following: > 1. The usuall stuff one finds in gdm/kdm/xdm/wdm/*dm
Is xdmcp a must? anything better? > 2. An option for a "persistent" session. > If the user chooses the persistent session, one of the following > happens: > 2.1 If there is already a session for this user on the server, it > is attached immediately. An option to create a new session might > be in the first dialog, but I want the default to be as fast and > automatic as possible. > 2.2 If there is no session, a new dialog, maybe consisting of most > of the session types of the first, appears, letting the user > choose a session type for this new session. Then it's created and > connected to. > > In addition, it should be: > * At least as fast as X when on a LAN, preferably with all the extensions > the real X has (if it is indeed an X) - e.g. GLX, with the hardware > acceleration if available. > * At least as fast as the fastest remote slow-link compressor available > today (I think that's currently nomachine's NX). > > There are few mostly-independent issues here: > * Speed and features > This is already mostly available today, as separate protocols/programs, > not as something dynamic (e.g. a VNC session has the extensions it has > based on how the VNC server was compiled/configured. It can't use exts > available on the actual client dynamically, I think). > * Low network bandwidth use > This is the most worked-on issue, and is getting better every year. > * Comfortability and automation (securely!) > I know almost no work in this direction. The closest I could find is > a project to add internally VNC support to gdm by someone at RedHat > (google for 'gdm vnc'). > > I might have a few mistakes in the above (e.g. maybe VNC is smarter > than I thought, I read only little of the docs), but you'll agree > that the fact that Unix/Linux had remote display for more than 15 > years, but almost no useful session persistence, while Windows has > only around 7 years of remote display, with comfortable persistence > from day one - is simply amazing. VNC has been around long. I also don't believe that OpenGL/DirectX works well over such persistant sessions. What about NX? I heard andread about it, but never tried it. -- Tzafrir Cohen +---------------------------+ http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir/ |vim is a mutt's best friend| mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] +---------------------------+ ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
