[CentOS-virt] WinXP Xen guest: compare VNC vs RDP

Thu Apr 23 16:41:05 UTC 2009
Ed Heron <Ed at Heron-ent.com>

From: "Manuel Wolfshant", Wednesday, April 22, 2009 5:42 PM


> Well, if you can implement a LTSP-like solution, good for you. In my
> case all users already had local linux workstations running C5, the XP
> was needed only for a couple  of proprietary applications and  for a
> limited period of time. The problem came from the fact that despite
> using what I call pretty decent hw, most of the users did not have
> hardware capable of doing full virt but we had to start the project
> really FAST ( The software supplier informed me that the proprietary
> applications cannot run on linux the very day the project started,
> despite doing 3 months of preparations for the project). Basically I had
> no choice but create VMs on a server with spare resources (which
> happened to be in another city than the users). Your use case is
> different :)

  Yes.  All of my current users have WinXP.  I am merely moving their 
workstations into VM's in order to increase their processing power.

>>   I am interested in the multiple connections allowed with VNC for 
>> support
>> type console sharing.  When connected with RDP, the console of the VM has 
>> a
>> login screen, so you can't use VNC to the console at the same time as a 
>> RDP
>> connection...
>>
> It's not really like you describe it. With the proper patch, several
> different RDP users can share the VM, just as an 2003 server would do
> for more money. In our case, this was important because - at least in
> the beginning of the project - the number of simultaneous users exceeded
> the number of available VMs
> As of VNC sharing the console .. I am not sure what are you speaking
> about. As far as I know, VNC is quite reluctant to share a single
> desktop with several users, unless the connections are R/O. And in a LAN
> the speed is acceptable, but via remote links VNC quickly becomes
> "unpleasant". If you go the VNC way, I strongly suggest to examine NX
> instead.

  Yes.  Read-only secondary connections for support.  Since this is a long 
term solution (permanent), I get to design for sufficient resources.

> I have only networked printers, too, but in this case it was not about a
> printer but a hardware toy (ASIC development board).

  I have one device in several of my offices that the vendor specifies a 
brain-dead serial cable.  I'm expecting this to be my only hardware hurdle.