[CentOS] Trying to understand Remote desktops

[Les Mikesell]

Robert Moskowitz wrote:
> This is something that has been long overdue for me to set up, and how I 
> am looking it hard in the face.
> 
> Back in '94, I was doing REAL X-Terminals into UNIX systems.  Watching 
> simple mouse meanderings eat up all available bandwidth, and forget it 
> if you resized a window and had to download the new font.....
> 
> So here we are, in the modern times with GNOME (I chose that over KDE, 
> because), and Open Office, Thunderbird, and lots of other nice graphical 
> apps.
> 
> I want to run the apps on an app server and access them for a thin 
> client.  I am familiar with the K12TLSP project, but right now I want to 
> see what I can do myself.

If you want to network-boot your client, k12ltsp is the easy way to go. 
It also sets up the right defaults for remote X logins even if you don't 
network boot.

> What is the minimum X install for the server to run Open Office with the 
> only graphical usage the remote client?

Gdm needs to be configured to accept remote logins.  I think there is a 
way to disable X on the console while permitting it over the network but 
I've always had trouble with that and just let the login box come up 
unused on the console.

> I well learned back in '91 when I started with TCP/IP, the TCP 
> Client/Server model and how X-Windows and SNMP ran 'backwards'.  That is 
> your device was the Server and the device with the data/app was the 
> client.  So in theory, all I would need to have on the Centos Apps 
> server is the X and Gnome client parts and some remote server (like XRDP)?
> 
> I have the test box sitting here, ready to run an install....
> 
> I think it would be so cool, to see my Gnome desktop from the apps 
> server running on my little old Libretto running DSL.

If you don't start X automatically on the remote, you can start it with:
X -query server_name
to log into the server and run the desktop from there.

You might also like freenx and the NX client.  It is cross-platform, has 
better remote performance over limited bandwidth, and allows you to 
suspend and re-connect to running sessions.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com