On 3/4/2011 12:07 PM, Dr. Ed Morbius wrote:
>
>>>> But why do you need screen, then?
>>>
>>> Terminal multiplexing, session persistance, scrollback/logging, split
>>> screen (top running in the top panel, shell underneath, etc.), workflow
>>> organization (similar processes are grouped in a screen session).
>>
>> But all of that just happens by itself in a GUI screen and isn't
>> limited to text mode.
>
> I think you're fundamentally failing to understand my operating mode.
>
> Local system == Linux === my administrative center.
No, I've done things that way too. And I've had a linux box at my desk
and can boot my laptop into it when I want. I just prefer NX with what
looks exactly like a local linux desktop because when I'm at my desk
it's essentially the same (minor plus for having windows on the same
box, but I could run a separate computer if I wanted) - and when I'm
remote I still have it all.
> Remote hosts. May be a dozen. May be 20,000. Or some number between
> or beyond.
Same. Mine are clustered in a few locations though, so I normally have
some strategically located ssh connections to run management scripts to
local sets instead of directly from my desktop session. And if I need
to connect to one from home, I'll grab my desktop screen and pick up
from there.
> Desktop persistance is local.
But my desktop includes my terminal windows and ssh connections.
> If I have to interactively operate on an individual remote host, I'm
> doing my job wrong. Preferably that's limited to initial provisioning
> and possibly hardware troubleshooting. Ideally, not even then (I
> haven't met my ideal). I'm really not particularly interested in having
> some complex GUI state on multiple remote systems.
Agreed, but much of my development/testing is in a lab across the
country. For a few things, like working in a GUI report writer, I run a
separate NX session to a box there, but for text work, it is just ssh in
another terminal window on my main desktop.
> Again: my objective isn't to change your mind but possibly open it a
> tad. That appears to be increasingly unlikely.
It isn't like I've never worked in text mode before, or directly in a
Linux X desktop without NX, so I don't see anything I need to be 'open'
to. I'm just saying NX is better than all the other ways I've tried.
If you don't care about letting programs run essentially forever on your
desktop or being able to continue work-in-progress from other places,
fine, but no, you aren't going to convince me I don't like it.
>>> I'm writing this mail in mutt, in a screen session with multiple
>>> mailboxes open, each to its own screen window. It's like a multi-tabbed
>>> GNOME or KDE terminal, except that the session persists even if the
>>> controlling terminal is killed, or X dies altogether.
>>
>> Yes, but you are limited to text mode apps.
>
> Feature.
No accounting for taste, I guess. I'll take thunderbird over mutt
anytime, although that's an exception to my normal operating mode
because I tend to run that on the local OS/screen instead of on the NX
desktop. My accounts are all IMAP on a server reachable from the
internet so there's no need to maintain a local state and thunderbird
works more or less the same regardless of the OS. But that's just a
practical matter of sometimes wanting email without the Linux desktop.
> Running remote GUI management apps is an utter fail.
I'm agnostic about that. The only thing I depend on that you might call
a GUI management tool is having firefox access to an assortment of
monitoring, reporting, ticketing, etc. applications on the private side
of the network. There are other ways this could be handled, but it is
nice to just have already-open windows on the desktop that has access to
everything. So if I'm connecting from home to work on some problem, I
automatically have access to everything related including still-open
monitor sessions, etc. You can do that with everything on a laptop but
it's a lot harder to keep running sessions going while you drive home.
> If you've *GOT* to run some remote GUI application, then yes, you're
> going to want a tool that supports it, of which there are several, and
> of which NX is merely one of many options. It's not a best, standard,
> open, free, or actively developed (in free software) solution.
The GUI apps mostly run on 'my' desktop without much concept of whether
they are remote or not. I think that's the real difference in the way we
are thinking. The text windows run there too - and they both run very
nicely. The current NX client is free in the sense of cost and works
with freenx. I've always wished that RAM had been cheap back when X was
originally designed so that they would have put the proxy/cache that you
need for performance in from the start, but as things stand, NX is as
good as I've seen. If you think there is something better, cheaper, and
standard that is equally functional, I'm very interested, but I'm not
going back to mutt or screen or having to constantly think in different
terms about local and remote applications (at least local/remote 'to me'
which can change from hour to hour).
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell at gmail.com