Hello,

I just installed CentOS 4.4 and when I connect to it from my XP machine using Cygwin/X and the gnome desktop I’ve noticed that after a couple of minutes it slows to a crawl (menus and dialog boxes don’t display immediately when I click on them). Accessing the X session from the console does not exhibit this behavior. Just recently, instead of going with the default gnome desktop and just to rule out possible connectivity concerns, I selected the KDE desktop during logon and did not notice this behavior. I tried comparing gdm.conf to my RHL7.3 machine and I’m not seeing anything drastically different so what am I overlooking?

Wei-min Lee

I had the same issue using X forwarding with Cygwin/X and ssh. I tried to compress the data going through the pipe (ssh has an option for that) and it improved somewhat, but X just sends a lot of data through. However, now I have switched over to using VNC. So I installed the UltraVNC client on my windows machine and used the existing vncserver on Centos 4.4.

IF YOU THINK THIS IS YOUR PROBLEM and should you want to install the vncserver, I included, below, a procedures section to configure the VNC server, which I had written for my Home Linux Adminstration Guide. Installing the UltraVNC client on a windows machine is straightforward (you can get the installation package from sourceforge).

However, I suggest you read up on VNC before following the instructions below. For more info, 'man vncserver' and do a search for ultravnc on the net. When using VNC from the public internet, I port forward VNC through an ssh tunnel.

Michael ____________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________

VNC configuration

To configure vnc, execute the following as the user who will be running the VNC server:

§ Choose a vnc password and create the configuration files by executing the following commands at the prompt:

$ vncserver $ killall Xvnc

§ Edit the ~/.vnc/xstartup file:

- Uncomment the following lines:

# unset SESSION_MANAGER # exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

to make them look like this:

unset SESSION_MANAGER exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

- Replace the last line in the file :

twm &

with this line:

exec gnome-session &

§ As the root user, edit the /etc/sysconfig/vncservers file and modify this line:

#VNCSERVERS=”1:myusername”

by replacing "myusername" with the login name of intended user.

§ Edit the /etc/init.d/vncserver file and replace this line:

# chkconfig: - 91 35

with this line:

# chkconfig: 345 91 35

§ Add the vncserver to the list of services to be started at boot time by executing the following command while in the /etc/init.d directory:

# chkconfig –del vncserver # chkconfig –add vncserver

§ Verify the vncserver has been turned on for levels 3, 4, and 5 by executing this command:

# chkconfig –list vncserver

§ The VNC server will now start at boot time; however, you can manually start it immediately by executing the following command:

# service vncserver restart