The most important apps/solutions I miss in Linux (Gentoo)!

Januszzz

Hi,
I think there are many things that needs to be improved, both in Linux and Gentoo also. I'm not gonna list them all but only two things which absence makes me mad:

1. Lack of real terminal services. I can use XDMCP, it is fast, but when network down... oops... I loose data as I cannot reconnect to the same session. And XDMCP needs to be tunelled through VPN, so infrastructure is bigger (I need 2 vpn servers to make it robust). I can use vnc, but its slow and not optimized for bigger bandwith, and its VERY difficult to setup & manage, when you use it for 80+ persons. Ok, I could use NX, but I cannot take over the user session, like in XDMCP... and last one solution, named LTSP, is fine but I can do it by myself better :-)

My temporary solution is still XDMCP over VPN for 80+ people with KDE and krfb (for helpdesk) launched, but I hate phones when network outage occurs and clients cry for their VERY IMPORTANT ;-)

data lost

2. Lack of package manager in Gentoo. See my post about kuroo and much more interesting answers here: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-572106-highlight-.html

Hey, remember that I'm average+, so if you have any proposition esp. about terminal services I'm listening!

Wormo

Januszzz · Posted: Tue Jan 22, 2008 7:35 am Post subject:

Hi,
performance is not an issue - I have nice networks and gigabit link to external network from server. And the howto is years old and not valid anymore.

I'm whining here because I did the installation about 3 years ago and now it needs update (its based on xfree, openvpn 1.6 and other such "pearls"). Mainly it needs xdmcp replacement, as the network breaks sometimes and usrs gets disconnected.

What I'm trying to setup is installatation, where client gets connected using IP address only. I need to authenticate as an user directly in remote kdm. I can use any techinque, but I need:
- simultaneous users logins, to different X instances, all through kdm,
- user can disconnect and reconnect to the session,
- I can take over an user mouse and show him where the damn Firefox icon is :-)

The first is easy with remote X. The second is easy with vnc. The last is not very hard, users can have krfb launched, this is the way I do now. But all three is virtually impossible.

Now I'm trying to setup x11vnc but with limited success. Do you know it is possible to use it in the way I want? Howtos are limited to personal usage of course.

Januszzz · Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 11:14 am Post subject:

Hey, I found something at least that perfectly solves my problem with terminal services - its NX.

I crafted a distro which is exported through NFS and booted by clients. It boots to X with nice jpg inside and launches NX client with user profile configured against MAC address of the user. Of course there was some usual issues with that, but at least it works.

I've used freenx and nxclient from No Machine.

So the user can suspend its session, switches can have a break etc. It works better than pure X but has some drawbacks too: I sometimes cannot click in ANYTHING on the screen, K menu button for example, but Konsole on the same screen works perfectly, accepts commands, displays output etc. So virtually everything freezes for a while but one app still goes...

But for now it is minor problem and I guess its NX implementation bug in freenx, but as buying terminal services is not an option for me, I'm extremely satisfied.

I haven't also tried taking over users sessions, but I leave it as my clients after years with KDE and XDMCP are now extremely educated and probably only new people will need assistance :-)