What is best for for old computer - remote X, VNC or FreeNX?

Mikos

Hello,
I have old computer (Pentium-200 MMX, 32MB RAM, ATI Rage II+ [mach64] 2MB videocard) where I wan't to run X.Org and some light WM (probably icewm). But I want to be able to remotely share my X desktop when I am working on it, so other people on LAN (100Mbit) can see what I am doing or even can remotely control my desktop (same time I am working on it). Security is not problem here (and I don't want to use SSH, because it will slow that old computer down). There are my questions:

1.) Is this possible with remote X connection? So someone can connect to my runnind :0.0 X display and can see everything what I am doing? If it is possible, can I configure permissions who can only view my screen and who can also interact with it?

2.) I am thinking mainly about remote X, because I assume that VNC server would slow down that old computer too much. Is it right? Or is there some VNC server implementation that doesn't slow down computer? There is TighVNC, RealVNC, xf4vnc, x11vnc. What is best for this purpose? (again: remote connection to running :0.0 X display on slow old computer, but via good 100Mbit bandwidth)?

3.) What about FreeNX? I know it is the best solution for low bandwidth connections, but what about performance on old computer? And can it be used for connection to running X display?
_________________
o Athlon-XP 2600+ (512kB cache), 512MB DDR400 RAM, GeForce FX-5600 128MB
o using Arch Linux now, but still love Gentoo ;-)

peter96362930 · Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2005 6:41 am Post subject:

A while back I did something similar, but my old computer had 64Mb memory. I used XFCE4 for the window manager and TightVNC. It seemed to work OK.

Mikos · Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2005 1:46 am Post subject:

This computer has only 32MB RAM and I don't want to buy more RAM for it. So I want to know what is most effective option (in terms of low CPU and memory usage). Remote X should be perhaps the best solution, but does it work for this scenario (i.e. remote desktop connection to :0.0 X display while I am working on it)? Or can this be done only via VNC? Is there some absolutely CPU/memory non-demanding VNC implementation?

Anybody have some ideas?
_________________
o Athlon-XP 2600+ (512kB cache), 512MB DDR400 RAM, GeForce FX-5600 128MB
o using Arch Linux now, but still love Gentoo ;-)

seb64 · n00b Joined: 30 Sep 2002 Posts: 28

short answer: use vnc

Merlin-TC · l33t Joined: 16 May 2003 Posts: 603 Location: Germany

You are in a 100Mbit environment so just don't use a high compression rate. If there is not much to compress the CPU usage won't be that high.
I think you should just try VNC or TightVNC and play around with the compression settings.