Thin client laptop

[ATG]

Hey, if I wanted to use a laptop exclusively as a thin client for my desktop (both running debian), what would be the best route; X client/server or vnc? What would be the implications of each? Thanks in advance.

[Prometheum]

Typically, real thin clients run on dedicated hardware. A laptop has way too much computing power to really be a thin client. I would recommend just using VNC if you really want something along those lines; there might be a more elegant solution involving X over ssh or something, but I wouldn't know it.

Why do you want to do this, exactly?

[coroner]

A real thin client has no hard drive or storage medium, and uses PXE as it's bootstrapping mechanism.

I had a big ass post to this thread and thanks to what we think is a GCC optimization bug affecting just a few applications, my web browser crashed once again.. so it is lost.

Anyhow, you want to evaluate what your limitations are first, involving network bandwidth and processor power along with memory capacity of your systems.

I for example have GigaBit ethernet on this laptop, so I wouldn't really need to evaluate much if my routing appliances and other nodes have GigaBit ethernet capabilities.

I would suggest X.org server/client setup though right off hand regardless of knowing anything about your setup. The reason for this is as stated in this posting from RealVNC's website:
http://www.realvnc.com/pipermail/vnc...er/010222.html
(Note: That is from 1999, so it's nearly a ten year old document.)

That X.org server/client architecture was built specifically for use over the network and anything that can be rendered locally, will be. VNC on the other hand will transfer all data over the link, but has the advantage that not all operating systems have an X.org implementation and is more platform independant, you stated you are using two Debian Linux systems, I would rule out VNC immediately.

FreeNX might also be something to look into as it is a free implementation of the commercially used NX server.. and is good for high latency networks using high compression for data.

Can you state more about your network, limitations and hardware you would be using?

[beatmeofficer]

Do you run graphical login managers on the server and laptop? If you do, then XDMCP is what you're looking for.

[ATG]

Ok I think VNC is what I need. I wanted it so I only have 1 computer to manage applications on. Can I make VNC use the resolution of the laptop display?

[coroner]

Well, depending on the exact VNC client you decide to use, this will dictate what color depths and resolutions you can use, regardless of what the VNC server provides, if your client VNC application doesn't have the option, it won't work.

vncviewer which is part of X looks like it is the most simplistic, TightVNC on the other hand looks like it would provide you with any options you want..

So.. you are using PXE and NFS mounted filesystems to do this right?

[coroner]

Anyways, what you want to try and watch out for using VNC client and VNC server on/from the same machine.. is the fact that the data crossing the link needs to make a round trip on the same physical link. This is going to be at best 10MBPS on say a LinkSys WRT54G router being full-duplex.

If you're curious how this affects you, try playing a video over VNC with mplayer or Xine or something, it will give you a good representation visually about the data rate. I'm not sure if this will be an issue for you, but take it into account.

[Renegadeoftech]

You could always use FreeNX (http://freenx.berlios.de/) which encrypts and speeds up VNC sessions.